A 




V 



,0 






^7 



,♦ * 



,* v *** * 







^ A^ 



IVith the Compliments 

of the Executive Committee. 



VISIT 

OF THE 

HON. CARL SCHURZ 

TO BOSTON 



VISIT 



OF THE 



HON. CARL SCHURZ 






TO BOSTON 



March, 1881 




BOSTON 

JOHN WILSON AND SON 
Sarubcrsitg $rcss 

1881 






if 6.64 

,s sin 



CONTENTS. 



Names of the Executive Committee 5 

The Invitation 7 

Names of the Signers to the Invitation, and of the Pur- 
chasers of Tickets 8 

Mr. Schurz' Reply 11 

Proceedings at the Dinner 13 

Address by the Hon. Charles R. Codman 13 

Address by the Hon. Carl Schurz 19 

Address by President Charles W. Eliot 35 

Address by the Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D 41 

Address by the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D. . . 49 

Address by Edward L. Pierce, Esq 53 

Address by Dr. E. B. de Gersdorff 62 

Address by Col. Theodore Lyman 66 

Letters 71 

Invitation to Ex- Attorney General Devens . . . . 71 

Letter from Ex- Attorney General Devens 72 

Second Letter from Ex-Attorney General Devens . . 73 

Letter from Ex-President Hayes 74 

Letter from Ex-Secretary Evarts 74 

Letter from Ex-Secretary Sherman ....... 75 

Letter from George William Curtis, Esq. . . . . . 76 

Letter from Mr. Francis Parkman 77 

Reception by German Citizens 79 

Address by Professor Krauss 79 

Address by the Hon. Carl Schurz 81 

Receptions by the St. Botolph Club, Orpheus Club, and 

others 89 



The portrait of the Hon. Carl Schurz is an 
artotype by Harroun and Bierstadt of New York, 
from a negative kindly lent by Mora, the well-known 
photographer. 



(fecutibe Committee. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN. EDWARD ATKINSON. 

ROBERT M. MORSE, Jr. JAMES M. BUGBEE. 

WILLIAM W. CLAPP. EDWIN B. HASKELL. 

A. J. C. SOWDON. ALFRED D. CHANDLER. 



I. 



THE INVITATION. 

Hon. Carl Schurz : 

Dear Sir, — The undersigned, citizens of Massachu- 
setts, respectfully invite you to a dinner in Boston, on such 
a day after the 4th of March next as you may select, that 
we may then have the gratification of expressing in person 
our respect and regard for you as a statesman and citizen, 
and of thanking you for the eminent ability, the marked 
fidelity, and the approved success with which you have 
performed all your duties as Secretary of the Interior. 

Boston, Feb. 12, 1SS1. 



VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 



N A M E S 



SIGNERS TO THE INVITATION TO MR. SCHURZ AND OF 
THE PURCHASERS OF TICKETS TO THE DINNER. 



Adams, Chas. Francis 
*Adams, Charles F,, Jr. 

Adams, John Quincy 
*Aldrich, Thos. Bailey 
*Alexander, James 

Ames, Frederick L. 
*Ames, Oakes A. 
*Ames, Oliver 
*Amory, Harcourt 

Amory, James S. 

Amory, William 
*Andre\v, John Forrester 

Atkinson, Charles F. 
*Atkinson, Edward 

Atkinson, George 

Atkinson, William P. 
*Babcock, Lemuel H. 
*Barbour, Edward D. 

Barnard, Edmund J. 
*Barrett, Edwin S. 

Batcheller, Alfred H. 
*Bird, Frank W. 

Blake, Arthur W. 
*Blake, George Baty 

Blanchard, John A. 

Bond, E. W. 
*Bond, George William 
*Boos, Gabriel 
*Bowditch, Henry P. 
*Bowles, Samuel 

Bowles, S. W. 

Brigham, Lincoln F. 
*Brimmer, Martin 

Brooks, Henry C. 

Browne, Causten 
*Browne, Alexander P. 



*Bugbee, James M. 
*Burr, Isaac T. 

Cabot, J. Elliot 
*Candler, William L. 

Case, H. N. 

Chandler, Theoph. P. 

Chandler, Peleg W. 
*Chandler, Alfred D. 

Chase, George B. 
*Choate, Charles F. 
*Clapp, William W. 
*Clarke, Jas. Freeman 

Clement, J. H. 

Clifford, Charles W. 
*Coale, George G. 
*Cobb, Samuel C. 
*Cochrane, Alexander 
*Codman, Charles R. 
*Coffin, Geo. Winthrop 
*Coolidge, Albert L. 
*Coolidge, Horace H. 

Coolidge, T. Jefferson 
*Copeland, Charles W. 
*Crocker, George G. 
*Crocker, Uriel H. 
*Cummings, John 
*Cunningham, Fred'k 
*Curtis, George S. 
*Curtis, Laurence 
*Dalton, Henry R. 

Dana, Richard H., Jr. 
*Dana, Thomas 
*Danforth, Isaac W. 
*Danforth, James H. 

Daniell, Josiah E. 
*Davis, J. Alba 



*Davis, James C. 
*Deane, Charles 
*De Gersdorff, E. B. 
*Denny, George P. 
*De Wolf, J. Halsey 
(Providence, R. I.) 
*Dexter, Frederick 
*Dodge, John C. 
*Dole, Charles F. 
*Dove, George W. W. 
*Duff, John R. 

Dunbar, Charles F. 

Dunham, J. N. 
*D\vight, John S. 
*Eliot, Charles W. 
*EUis, George E. 
*Emmons, Nathaniel H. 
*Endicott, Henry 
*Endicott, William, Jr. 
*Ernst, George A. O. 
*Erskine, John 

Eustis, William Tracy 

Everett, Charles C. 
*Everett, William 
*Farnsworth, Ezra 
*Fay, Clement K. 
*Fisk, James C. 
*Fitz, Reginald H. 

Flagg, Augustus 
*Forbes, John M. 

Forbes, William H. 
*Foster, Charles O. 
*Foster, Francis A. 
*Fox, Jabez 
*French, Abram 
*French, Lvman P. 



NAMES OF SIGNERS, ETC. 



♦French, William A. 
♦Friedman, S. 
♦Gallagher, Charles T. 

Gems, Robert 

Gladden, Washington 
*Goddard, George A. 
*Godkin, E. L. (New 

York) 
*Gookin, Charles B. 
*Gorham, James L. 
*Greenough, Malcolm S. 
*Greenough, Wm. W. 
*Grew, Henry S. 
*Grover, William O. 

Guild, Josiah F. 

Haile, W. H. 
*Hale, George S. 
♦Harding, Herbert L. 
♦Hardy, Alpheus H. 

Hardy, Edward T. 

Harris, F. H. 
♦Haskell, Edwin B. 
♦Hayden, Edward D. 
♦Henshaw, Edward 
♦Higginson, T. Went- 
woi'th 

Higginson, Waldo 
♦Hill, Clement Hugh 
♦Hill, Hamilton A. 
♦Hill, J. E. R. 
♦Hobart, Arthur 
♦Holmes, Oliver Wen- 
dell 

Hooper, Edward W. 
♦Hooper, Robert W. 

Horton, Charles P. 
♦Howe, Archibald M. 

Howells, William D. 
♦Howes, Osborne, Jr. 

Huntress, George L. 

Ives, Stephen B., Jr. 
♦Jackson, Charles C. 
♦James, Charles L. 
♦James, George Abbot 
♦Jewell, Harvey 
♦Johnson, Samuel 
♦Joy, Glidden W. 



*Keith, James M. 
♦Kendall, Joseph S. 

Kidder, Henry P. 
♦King, George P. 

Kinsley, Edward W. 
♦Langdell, Charles G. 

Langerfeldt, C. W. R. 
♦Langerfeldt, T. O. 
♦Lathrop, John 

Lee, Henry S. 
♦Lewis, Weston 
♦Lincoln, Arthur 

Lincoln, Joseph B. 
♦Lincoln, Solomon, Jr. 

Little, James L. 

Livermore, Thomas L. 
(New Hampshire) 
♦Lodge, Henry Cabot 

Longfellow, Henry W. 
♦Loring, John A. 
♦Loring, William Caleb 
♦Lovering, William C. 
♦Luce, Matthew 
♦Lyman, John P. 
♦Lyman, Theodore 
♦Lyon, Henry 
♦Mack, Thomas 
*Marston, Stephen W. 

Mason, W. Powell 

Merriam, George S. 

Milton, Richard S. 

Minot, William, Jr. 
♦Morse, Leopold 
♦Morse, Nathan 
♦Morse, Robert M. 
♦Morse, Robert M., Jr. 
♦Morse, Samuel T. 
♦Moseley, Alexander 

Mudge, E. R. 
♦Munroe, William A. 
♦Myers, James J. 
♦Niles, Stephen R. 
♦Norcross, Grenville H. 

Norcross, Otis 
♦Norcross, Otis, Jr. 
♦Norton, Charles Eliot 

Ordway, John A. 



♦Osgood, James R. 
♦Page, Kilby 

Paine, Charles J. 

Parker, Francis E. 

Parker, Henry G. 

Parkinson, John 

Parkman, Francis 
♦Parkman, Henry 
*Peabody, Francis H. 

Peabody, Robert S. 

Perkins, Edward N. 
♦Perkins, William 

Philbrick, Edward S. 
♦Phillips, Henry M. 
♦Pierce, Edward L. 
♦Pierce, Henry L. 
♦Pierce, Jacob W. 
♦Pomeroy, Ralph M. 
♦Potter, Asa P. 

Powers, L. J. 
♦Prang, Loui9 

Pratt, John C. 
♦Proctor, Thomas P. 

Prouty, Dwight 
♦Pullman, George M. 

(Chicago, III.) 
♦Pulsifer, R. M. 
♦Putnam, George 

Putnam, John P. 

Quincy, Edmund. 
♦Quincy, Josiah, Jr. 

Quincy, Samuel M. 
♦Reed, Henry R. 
♦Richards, George H. 
♦Richardson, Moses W. 
♦Richardson, Thos. O. 
♦Richardson, Wm. L. 
*Roberts, James A. 

Robins, Edward B. 
♦Rodman, Samuel W. 
♦Rogers, Henry M. 

Rogers, John K. 

Rogers, William B. 
♦Ropes, John C. 
♦Ross, M. Denman 
♦Rueter, Henry II. 

Russell, Edward B. 



IO 



VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 



Russell, Henry S. 
*Russell, William G. 
*Samuel, N. 
*Sanford, John E. 
*Schlesinger, Barthold 
*Schlesinger, S. B. 
*Sears, J. Henry 
*Sears, J. Montgomery 
*Shaw, Lemuel 
*Shepard, Harvey N. 
*Shuman, A. 
*Simes, "William 

Sleeper, J. Henry 
*Smith, Edward M. 

Smith, W. L. 
*Snelling, George H. 
*So\vdon, A. J. C. 
*Spaulding, John P. 
*Spaulding, Mahlon D. 
*Sprague, Henry H. 
*Stackpole, J. Lewis 
*Stearns, Frank W. 
*Stearns, Richard H. 

Stebbins, Solomon B. 
*Stockton, Howard 

Storer, W. Brandt 

Storey, Moorfield 

Storrow, James J. 



*Sturgis, James 

Sturgis, John H. 

Sullivan, Richard 
*Talbot, I. Tisdale 

Talbot, Thomas 
*Tappan, Lewis W. 
*Teele, John O. 

Terhune, Edward P. 
*Thayer, Frank N. 
*Thayer, James B. 
*Thompson, Albert 
*Thompson, Francis 
*Thompson, Robert M. 

Thomdike, John L. 
*Thorndike, S. Lothrop 
*Thorp, Joseph G. 
*Townsend, Edward B. 
*Train, Charles R. 
*Villard, Henry (X. V.) 
*Wadleigh, Bainbridge 

(New Hampshire) 
*Walcott, Charles F. 
«Walcott, Henry P. 
*Walker, Nathaniel 
*Ware, William R. 
*Warner, Joseph B. 
*Warren, H. Langford 
*Warren, Samuel M. 



Webster, John G. 

W T eeks, Allen S. 
*Weil, Charles 
*Weissbein, Louis 
*Weld, A. Davis, Jr. 
*Weld, Francis M. (New 

York) 
*Weld, Otis E. 
*Weld, William G. 
*Wellington, Henry W. 
*Wells, Samuel 
*Weston, Henry C. 
*Wesselhoeft, Conrad 
*Wheeler, Alexander S. 
*Wheeler, Henry N. 
*White, Charles G. 
^Whitman Henry 
*Whitney, Henry M. 
* Williams, George Fred. 

Williams, Moses, Jr. 
*Williams, S. Augustus 
*Williams, William B. 

Wilson, James H. 

Winsor, Alfred 
*Winsor, Justin 
*Wolcott, Roger 
*Woods, Henry 
*Young, Charles L. 



* Attended the Dinner. 



MR. SCHURZ' REPLY. 

Department of the Interior, 

Washington, Feb. 24, 1881. 

DEAR Sir, — The letter signed by yourself and a large 
number of citizens of Massachusetts, by which I am invited 
to a public dinner in Boston, has been presented to me by 
Mr. A. D. Chandler of your city. I need not say how 
deeply sensible I am of the honor done me by an invita- 
tion not only most kind in its terms, but remarkable in the 
character of its signers ; and I gratefully accept it. 

To name a day for my visit to Boston will not be pos- 
sible until I shall know when my successor will be ready 
to take charge of the Interior Department. I shall then 
have the honor to correspond with you on this subject. 

Believe me, dear Sir, very truly yours, 

C. SCHURZ. 

Mr. Francis Parkman, 

Boston, Mass. 



II. 



PROCEEDINGS AT THE DINNER. 

Tuesday, the 22d of March, was selected as the day 
for the dinner, which was given at the Hotel Vendome. 
Mr. SCHURZ arrived in Boston on Monday, the 2ist, and 
dined with the Committee that evening at the Hotel. An in- 
formal reception to Mr. SCHURZ was held at five o'clock on 
Tuesday, the 22d, and at six the company sat down to dine. 
Grace was said by the Rev. J AMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
At half-past eight, the Hon. Charles R. Codmax, who 
presided, called the company to order, and delivered the 
opening address. He was followed by Mr. SCHURZ and by 
other gentlemen. The addresses of the president and of 
the guest of the evening, as well as those which followed, 
were received with the heartiest satisfaction throughout, 
and were continually interrupted by enthusiastic applause. 



ADDRESS BY THE HON. CHARLES R. CODMAN. 

We are assembled to-night to do honor, by a 
frank and cordial expression of regard, to one of 
the most distinguished statesmen of the country; to 
testify our hearty admiration of a remarkable and 
unexampled political career ; and to say to our fel- 
low-citizens in Massachusetts and in the whole 



1 4 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

country, so far as our names carry any influence or 
weight, that we believe that Carl Schurz, in the 
field, in the Senate, and in the Cabinet, has ren- 
dered services to the nation which rightfully place 
him in the foremost rank of her public men, and 
entitle him to the high respect and gratitude of all 
the people. 

At the age of nineteen, in the foreign country in 
which he was born, he had become conspicuous for 
an ardent devotion to the great principles of free- 
dom which have ever since guided and colored his 
political action. An exile and a refugee for liberty, 
he lands in early manhood upon the shores of 
America ; and, frankly renouncing his German citi- 
zenship, he adopts as his country the nation which 
gives to him, as to all the oppressed from foreign 
lands, protection, freedom, and opportunity. To 
that nation he gives his full allegiance ; and when 
her hour of danger comes, resigning an honorable 
post in her diplomatic service, he joins her patriotic 
sons born on her soil, and ventures his life in the 
war for Liberty and the Union. 

Of the highest capacity for public affairs, and by 
nature and training a lover of politics in the best 
sense of the word, he set himself the task of com- 
prehending the great ideas which underlie American 
constitutional government ; and he has mastered 
them with the same thoroughness with which he 
has conquered the difficulties of the historic lan- 
guage, through the medium of which they have 



MR. CODAIAN'S ADDRESS. 



*5 



been proclaimed to the world. No public man to- 
day has more deeply studied American history and 
politics ; none is more imbued with their spirit, in 
their higher aspects ; no one expounds more clearly, 
more ably, and more independently the problems 
of finance and of government. That a man of for- 
eign birth and of foreign education should gain the 
ear of an English-speaking people as journalist, 
writer, and speaker, and should hold a place in the 
popular estimation which places him in the fore- 
front of statesmen and orators, is now seen for the 
first time in Anglo-Saxon history. 

We who are here to-night believe that Carl 
Schurz is one of the few men in public life who 
distinctively represent independent and comprehen- 
sive statesmanship. We have felt, even when sepa- 
rated from him by party lines, and supporting 
candidates who were not his, that he may have been 
right and we mistaken. 

It is not given to all men to stand outside of the 
clash of parties, or wisely and judiciously to deter- 
mine between them. Those who can take such a 
position, and maintain it by sheer force of ability, 
integrity, and character, are surely our foremost 
men. They are not the leaders of factions ; they 
are not even the recognized leaders of parties, — 
though that is an honorable and a lofty function : 
but they are the champions of great policies, and, 
if not the chiefs of parties, they are the natural 
leaders of men. There have always been such men 



1 6 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

in our politics, and there will always be need of 
them. Charles Sumner was such a man; and Carl 
Schurz is such a man. 

It is my privilege to-night, in the name of this 
company, to present its thanks to Mr. Schurz for 
great and eminent services. We thank him that 
he has always been true to the two great political 
ideas which have ever been first in the hearts of the 
good people of this Commonwealth, — those, namely, 
of freedom and justice for all men, and of the sacred 
maintenance of public faith and credit. We thank 
him that when the West was honeycombed with 
the inflation heresy, his was the strongest and the 
clearest voice that pointed to the resumption of 
specie payments as demanded by every considera- 
tion of public safety and honor. And it has been 
his singular good fortune that upon this point, un- 
like many even of the wisest of our public men, he 
has had no occasion to revise or correct his opin- 
ions. They have stood the test of time ; and he has 
lived to see general acquiescence in views of which 
at one time he, almost alone among Western states- 
men, was the convinced and unhesitating advocate. 

We thank him for having added lustre and re- 
nown to the administration of President Hayes, — an 
administration which, in purity and honesty of pur- 
pose, and in absolute freedom from scandals and cor- 
ruption, has had no superior in American annals. 

We thank him for his able and successful man- 
agement of the vast and complicated concerns of 



MR. CODMAN'S ADDRESS. I 7 

the Department of the Interior; for having shown 
that the public business is done more economically, 
more efficiently, and more honestly by officials 
whose appointment and promotion depend solely 
upon their merit and competency, — thus demon- 
strating the necessity and practicability of extending 
the same principle to the entire civil service. 

We thank him for having done more than any 
of his predecessors for the advancement of the 
Indians in education and civilization, and for the 
improvement of their relations with the white men 
and with the Government. 

We thank him for having called the attention of 
our legislators — indifferent even after they were 
informed — to the outrages inflicted upon the Indi- 
ans in the name and by the agents of a free people ; 
and we congratulate him that a measure of justice 
has been meted out to the unfortunate Ponca tribe. 
That sentiment of sympathy for the oppressed, 
and of resistance to oppression, which always stirs 
the blood of Massachusetts, has at last awakened 
the conscience of this community ; and, in the sud- 
den and honest and indignant expression of that 
sentiment, grave injustice, as we believe, has been 
done to the man who, overlooking the whole field, 
and oppressed with the. load of official responsibility, 
has been considering for months and years a prob- 
lem of astounding difficulty, with a view to its solu- 
tion on principles of justice and safety for the 
Indians. And now that a tardy act of reparation 



1 8 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

has been done, and the nation has recognized its 
fault and its humiliation, surely that citizen may 
stand acquitted who, first of all men holding execu- 
tive or legislative office, proclaimed the wrong and 
demanded the redress. 

These are the views, as I have tried imperfectly 
to interpret them, of this assembly, — representing, 
not, I trust, altogether inadequately, the commercial 
enterprise, the literary culture, and the independent 
politics of Massachusetts. We offer to our guest, 
now withdrawing — temporarily, we hope — from 
the public service, this tribute of our regard. We 
will not believe that the country is to lose his val- 
ued counsels. He will yet be heard, we doubt not, 
in the press and in the gatherings of the people ; 
and we know that he will discuss the issues of the 
day with the highest intellectuality, patriotism, and 
power. Looking hopefully forward to the future, 
we are here to-night to thank him for the past, and 
to give him our best wishes and our heartiest com- 
mendation. Health and prosperity and added dis- 
tinguished public honors to Carl Schurz! 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 19 



ADDRESS BY THE HON. CARL SCHURZ. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I hope you 
will not find fault with me for saying that I stand 
before you a proud man, and you are responsible 
for it. When I received your invitation to this 
dinner, and read the names of its signers, — among 
them poets who have charmed the minds and be- 
come dear to the hearts of all civilized mankind, 
men of science, scholars, publicists, ministers, leaders 
of thought, of commerce, and of industry, ornaments 
and illustrations of this renowned old Common- 
wealth ; and when I considered that, in an expression 
of approval and confidence like this, votes are not 
only counted but weighed, and that this demonstra- 
tion came to me, not as to one clothed with power 
and authority, but at the moment of my return to 
private life, — I felt that I was honored in a measure 
falling to the lot of not many men. That I heartily 
thank you for this extraordinary honor is saying but 
little, and I am only troubled by a doubt as to how 
I can have deserved it all. I may say, at least, that 
I am conscious of having earnestly and faithfully 
endeavored to do so. 

This is not the first time I have received great 
kindness at the hands of citizens of Massachusetts. 
Twenty-two years ago, a young and obscure new- 
comer in this republic, as some of my friends here 



20 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

present may remember, I was, so to speak, intro- 
duced by public men of Massachusetts to the Ameri- 
can people as one of the advocates of the Antislavery 
cause. Later, when Charles Sumner had departed 
from the living, the city of Boston deemed me 
worthy to express her appreciation of the patriotic 
career, and her grief at the loss, of one of her most 
illustrious sons. Still later, I was honored with a 
call to aid in public debate in one of your State 
contests, when the cause of honest money and pub- 
lic faith seemed to be at stake. And more recently, 
in a controversy concerning the Indian problem, 
referred to by our honorable chairman, my name has 
been discussed in Massachusetts with a warmth of 
interest which could not have been greater had I 
been a native citizen of your Commonwealth, and 
had I lived in it and been of it all the days of my 
life. It is not surprising, therefore, that I should 
not feel like a stranger among you ; friend and foe 
here have treated me as one of your own, and I am 
perfectly at home with both. 

The measure of praise you have been kind 
enough to award to me for my administration of the 
Interior Department is — I say this without any 
affectation of modesty — perhaps too generous. I 
know better than any body else that my administra- 
tion has not been perfect. The Interior Department 
is not only the most difficult, it is also the most 
dangerous, department of the Government. It is so 
cumbrous and overgrown an accumulation of hete- 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 2 1 

rogeneous subjects, all of importance ; the interests 
in its care offer such attractions and temptations to 
those who strive to overreach the Government by- 
dishonest means, and the branches of the public ser- 
vice under its control are scattered over an extent of 
ground so extremely difficult to watch, that it re- 
quires a long and intense application on the part of 
its head to understand its different branches and 
all the places of danger, and to master its machinery. 
I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the 
Interior Department devolves as much labor and 
responsibility upon its head personally as any other 
two departments impose upon their chiefs combined. 
Under such circumstances, knowing the department 
as I do, I shall always be disposed to make ample 
allowance for extraordinary difficulties in passing 
judgment upon the success of a Secretary of the 
Interior, and to be very careful in charging upon 
him direct personal responsibility for occasional ac- 
cidents, mistakes, or failures. All that I am willing 
to claim for my own administration of that depart- 
ment — and a great part of that credit belongs to 
the able and faithful subordinate officers who aided 
me — is a certain measure of improvement upon the 
condition of things as I found them ; and I should 
be the last man to say that my successor may not 
find occasion for improvement upon the condition 
of things which I leave to him. He is a man of high 
character, just impulses, and great practical experi- 
ence and sagacity ; and one of the best wishes I can 






22 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

offer him is, that in the execution of his honest 
purposes he may find as kind a public judgment as 
you are giving me. 

I am sure that the honorable chairman has not 
mentioned the recent controversy about the Indian 
question for the purpose of continuing it here, and 
certainly I do not mean to do so. While it may be 
necessary sometimes to repel attacks in self-defence, 
I am always ready to give to every honest critic 
of my acts the same credit for good intentions 
which I claim for myself. Among those who have 
the public good in view, differences of opinion 
should not be permitted too easily to degenerate 
into impeachment of motives. You are certainly 
right in thinking that I could not possibly have 
spent four years of my public life in maliciously 
plotting the oppression of a poor Indian tribe. You 
may safely assume that no man at the head of the 
Interior Department, unless he be a corrupt and 
depraved wretch, will ever be inclined wilfuly to 
maltreat the Indians. 

But the management of Indian affairs has to deal 
with complications of difficulties of which nobody 
has any clear conception who is not personally con- 
versant with its details. It may easily happen that 
those charged with responsibility, and having the 
whole field in view, find themselves forced to resort 
to expedients of which those who direct their atten- 
tion only to one point of the intricate problem do 
not appreciate the necessity and bearing; and thus 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 23 

it happens that even honest criticism, while trying 
to be just to one side, may become flagrantly unjust 
to the other. 

As to my own administration of Indian Affairs, 
I am perfectly content to leave it to public judgment, 
even to the judgment of its critics, when the heat of 
unnecessary controversy shall have subsided. I 
know that my conduct has grown from just and 
humane purposes ; that my naturally kind feelings 
for the Indians have, by direct intercourse with them, 
ripened into a personal friendship, and that that 
friendship is reciprocated by most of the Indians 
with whom I have had personal contact, and who 
sometimes express their feelings in delicate and 
tender manifestations of attachment and gratitude. 
For I may assure you that the Indian is by no 
means devoid of such impulses and feelings. 

I think also that the policy followed by me during 
my administration, — the policy of promoting the 
transformation of the Indians from shiftless paupers 
into thrifty and orderly workers, as agriculturists, 
herdsmen, traders, and mechanics ; of extending 
their educational facilities, so as to teach them how 
to learn and how to live ; of stimulating their desire 
to become individual owners of land, and of other 
property, like white men : a policy, in a word, of pre- 
paring them for their ultimate absorption into the 
great body of American citizenship, with all its rights 
and duties, — has been as successfully carried on as 
four years of hard and conscientious work in an ex- 



24 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

ecutive department could make it ; and that a wise 
and vigorous pursuit of the same ends will finally 
solve that Indian problem which in the past has so 
often proved a trouble, and also sometimes a dis- 
grace, to the American people. 

Not as a matter of justice, but as a matter of fact, 
the rapid development of the country puts before 
the Indians the stern alternative of civilization, or 
destruction by conflict. Wise and human states- 
manship will see to it that the Indians do not stand 
in the way of that development, but become part of 
it, and benefited by it. This is the" " Indian prob- 
lem " in a nutshell. And I do not hesitate to de- 
clare my firm conviction, — a conviction springing 
from much study and some practical experience, — 
that the Indians can be civilized, at least sufficiently 
to secure an orderly, harmonious, and prosperous 
neighborhood with the white race. 

But to bring about this result all over the country 
requires not only the proclamation of general prin- 
ciples, but steady and judicious work in detail. To 
this work I have been devoted for four years, and 
the warm interest I take in the Indian race will in- 
duce me to aid it in whatever way I can, as a private 
citizen, as long as I live. 

It is a singular thing, but not a rare one, that we 
are impugned in our best motives and actions by 
those whom an identity of general purpose should 
make our friends. The most discordant sounds are 
produced by different people playing the same mel- 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 25 

ody at the same time in different keys ; and so I 
have had to suffer attack not only from a reckless 
border sentiment, bent on war and destruction, but 
from some of those who speak in the name of phil- 
anthropy. I suppose I am not the first who has had 
to endure this, and shall not be the last. 

But now the so-called Ponca question appears to 
be happily disposed of. Congress has appropriated 
a liberal sum to indemnify the Poncas for their loss, 
and to settle them comfortably according to their 
wishes. The Poncas in the Indian Territory are 
content to stay there ; the Poncas in Dakota are 
content to stay there. The provision made for 
them is all they ask for. The Poncas are satisfied, 
the Government is satisfied, the American public 
at large seem to be satisfied ; and it is to be hoped 
that soon to that general satisfaction there will be 
no exception, and that honest philanthropy will find 
for this unity of purpose also once more harmony 
of action. 

A few days ago I had the pleasure of addressing 
a public meeting in New York in behalf of the 
enlargement of facilities of Indian education at the 
Hampton school, — a most worthy and important 
object. That meeting in New York was very suc- 
cessful, and I hope that the same movement will 
commend itself with equal success to the philan- 
thropic citizens of Boston. Let us join hands in 
it, and do something of immediate practical impor- 
tance for the Indians; and let us hope that in such 



26 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

useful efforts the old Ponca quarrel may no longer 
divide us. 

But as the Ponca question was not the whole In- 
dian problem, so the Indian problem is only a small 
part of our national concerns. Our honorable chair- 
man has touched upon many topics, and opened a 
large field ; and you will pardon me if, for a moment, 
I follow him. 

I venture to say that no inhabitant of this coun- 
try can survey the condition of things in the world 
abroad without congratulating himself with pride 
and gratitude upon being an American citizen, 
and upon living in this great and happy republic. 
While on the other side of the Atlantic we see Eng- 
land perplexed by the Irish problem, — that problem 
having assumed almost a revolutionary character, 
— and by a far-off war, rendered odious not only 
by occasional disasters, but still more so by the 
conscious injustice of its cause ; while we see the 
nations of the European continent groaning under 
the terrible burdens of an armed and precarious 
peace, disquieted by social restlessness, political fac- 
tion, and economic disorder ; while we see the 
assassination of an emperor spreading general con- 
sternation, and an uncertain, threatening future 
hanging over all Europe like a gloomy thunder 
cloud : while we observe all these portentous signs 
there, the only question which immediately troubles 
us is, whether we shall or shall not have an extra 
session of Congress to enable the Government to 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 27 

fund our national bonds at a rate of interest less 
than four per cent! We justify once more the old 
saying, " Happy the country that has no history!" 
We make but little history at the present moment ; 
we should, perhaps, be more comfortable if we made 
still less. 

Indeed, never since the close of our civil war has 
our condition — economic, social, and political — 
been so generally satisfactory as it is now. 

Of our material prosperity I need not speak. It 
is felt in every sphere of society, in every branch 
of industry and commerce. It is the envy of the 
world. 

The animosities of our great civil conflict have, 
in a great measure, subsided. Prosperous activity 
in the South has accelerated the healing of old 
sores, and the people of the two sections are more 
and more drawn together again by the conscious- 
ness of common rights, common duties, common 
aims, and a common destiny ; in short, by the inspi- 
ration of a common patriotism. 

Our National Government has, I think, suc- 
ceeded in proving once more the falsity of the old 
assertion, that corruption is an inevitable concomi- 
tant of democratic institutions. Whatever mistakes 
may have been made by the late administration, — 
and I frankly admit that they were not a few, — it 
is generally conceded that it has demonstrated the 
possibility of honest, business-like, and morally- 
respected government in this republic ; and the 



28 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

new administration, I have no doubt, means to do 
no less, but will endeavor to do more. 

Upon these things we may all congratulate our- 
selves ; but even under such happy circumstances 
we should not permit our optimism to carry us so 
far as to think that everything is, and will remain, 
just as it ought to be. 

As to our material prosperity, we ought to see to 
it that the spirit of enterprise and speculation do 
not run away with our judgment. Perhaps we are 
already going at a rate of speed which taxes the whole 
endurance of our energies. We are inclined to 
boast of the soundness of our money system ; but we 
should take care that we may not find ourselves 
some day with a quantity of silver money on our 
hands which will drive out our gold, and leave us 
with all the disadvantages of an inferior currency in 
the great commerce of the world. We should con- 
sider that our excellent banking system, which is, in 
a business point of view, one of the most valuable 
legacies of the war, — in fact, the best banking sys- 
tem this country ever had, and, I think, the best 
which any country has to-day, — will be of no less 
value to the business of the country in prosperous 
times than in times of depression, and should not 
be lightly jeoparded for some comparatively trifling 
and apparent advantage. In this respect the best 
policy emphatically is, to let well enough alone. 

As to the formerly hostile sections of the coun- 
try, I am sure the number of those in the North 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 29 

who desire to keep alive old animosities for political 
purposes, or who think it politically profitable to do 
so, is daily growing less, and their influence on pub- 
lic opinion is decidedly declining. On the other 
hand, the wise and generous sentiment, that if we 
wish the South to be and remain loyal and patri- 
otic, we must frankly and cordially recognize and 
encourage every evidence of loyalty and patriotism 
on its part, is every day becoming more emphatic 
and preponderant. 

In fact, it is a great mistake on the part of our 
Southern brethren to believe that the people of the 
North are inclined to distrust them, and to deprive 
them of their share of political power, because they 
are Southern men; and that for this reason, and 
this reason alone, the majority of the Northern peo- 
ple discountenance a political organization in which 
the South has been striving to be a unit. I cer- 
tainly do not speak as a partisan, when I say that it 
is no sectional feeling which induces most of us to 
criticise and oppose political practices and theories 
which, with equal determination, we would criticise 
and oppose among ourselves, — such as encroach- 
ments upon the rights of voters, a dangerous finan- 
cial policy, and the like ; things detrimental to the 
principles of republican government, and to inter- 
ests common to the whole country, — South as well 
as North. In the same measure as Southern men 
show that they are willing to respect the rights of 
others as their own are respected; to treat living pub- 



30 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

lie questions on their own merits, making their party 
divisions on those questions ; and that they value 
the interests they have in common with other parts 
of the Union above those which they have thought 
to be peculiar to the South, — the question of politi- 
cal power, as between the North and the South, will 
no longer have any force. When the South ceases 
to assert itself as a distinct section, different from 
others, the North will necessarily have to do the 
same thing; and sectionalism will be at an end. It 
is to be hoped that patriotic men, North and South, 
will work together to that effect; and I am sure 
that the enlightened people of Massachusetts have, 
on many occasions, shown their cheerful willingness 
to do so. 

' As to the character and efficiency of the Govern- 
1 ment in its different branches, something has been 
tried, and I think something has been accomplished, 
in the way of improvement. I highly value the com- 
pliment paid me by your chairman for my efforts 
in that direction ; but more remains to be done. 
In the administration of the Interior Department 
I have become convinced, more strongly than I 
ever was, that a thorough and systematic reform of 
our civil service in the methods of appointment, 
tenure, and removal is not only necessary, but also 
practicable. I am convinced that as our National 
Government grows with the growth of the country ; 
that as the questions it is to deal with become larger 
and more complicated, — the organization of the ad- 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 



31 



ministrative machinery upon the principles of the 
old spoils system will show itself more and more to 
be a positive danger. It not only tends to render 
the service itself untrustworthy, in point of integrity 
and efficiency, but also to make political contests 
more struggles for power than for the realization 
of ideas ; and it enables and encourages public men 
to make themselves leaders of faction instead of 
leaders of opinion ; to rule the politics of the coun- 
try by the power of organization rather than by the 
power of ideas. 

While this is a dangerous thing under any cir- 
cumstances, it will be doubly so as the spoils mul- 
tiply, and the value of the interests acted upon by 
the Government grows larger and more tempting. 
The control of organized faction, held together in 
great part by the hope of spoils, — regarding prin- 
ciples and policies more or less as incidental to 
its aims, — is the natural outgrowth of this system. 
It cannot fail in the end to subject the body poli- 
tic to selfish ends, and to undermine republican 
institutions. 

To avert this clanger, the abolition of the spoils 
system and the systematic substitution therefor of a 
civil service, organized upon sound business princi- 
ples, is an absolute necessity. It is frequently said 
that this cannot be accomplished unless the people 
change their traditional notions and habits concern- 
ing this subject. This may be true. But I believe 
that the people are beginning to change their habits 



32 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

and notions. What the country desires is an honest, 
wise, business-like administration of public affairs. 
It would have questions of public interest dis- 
cussed and decided upon their own merits. In 
order to have this, the offices of the Government 
must cease to be mere spoils of party warfare; and 
thus the spoils themselves must cease to be a 
great motive power in political contests. Many 
who did not see this yesterday see it to-day ; and 
many who do not see it to-day will see it to-morrow. 
I believe that there is a growing sentiment in favor 
of a thorough reform, and greater hope of its accom- 
plishment. What has been gained in that direction 
cannot be abandoned by either political party with 
impunity ; and each party will find itself obliged to 
move onward, if it be only from motives of self- 
preservation. 

When during the last session of Congress, cer- 
tain Democrats brought forward a proposition for 
the reform of the civil service, some Republicans dis- 
credited and ridiculed the effort. I regretted to see 
this. An effort in so good a direction should be 
welcomed, from whatever side it may come. If the 
Republicans are wise, they will not ridicule the Dem- 
ocratic reformers, but take them at their word. If 
there is any insincerity in their movement, it will 
then show itself. To gain the advantage of the 
Democrats, the Republicans will have to prove that 
they are more sincere in the work of reform than 
their opponents. They can do so by taking up the 



MR. SCHURZ' ADDRESS. 



33 



work more vigorously ; and I trust they will, for I 
know they can, having the largest reform element 
on their side. 

I do not speak here merely as a party man, but 
rather as one who has an object of great public in- 
terest in view. It has always been, and is now, my 
opinion that the public interest is best served when 
each political party must depend for its success 
upon its own virtues, and not upon the shortcom- 
ings of its opponents. As a member of a party, I 
have therefore always desired, not that the opposing 
party should be as bad, but that it should be as 
good, as possible. It would thereby oblige my 
party to elevate its aims and to do its best. Such 
are my feelings now. I hope that the Democrats 
will, in the reform of the civil service, as in all other 
respects, do the best they can. As a Republican, I 
hope that the Republicans will do still better. In 
this way we may accomplish something of lasting 
value between the two. 

At this moment the two political parties are pretty 
evenly balanced. In quiet times like ours that is, 
on the whole, a healthy condition. It reminds both 
parties that neither of them can venture upon mis- 
chief without seriously impairing its prospects for 
the future. 

Between them stands an element which is not con- 
trolled by the discipline of party organization, but 
acts upon its own judgment for the public interest. 
It is the independent element; which, in its best 

3 



34 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

sense and shape, may be defined as consisting of 
men who consider it more important that the govern- 
ment be well administered than that this or that set 
of men administer it. This independent element is 
not very popular with party politicians in ordinary 
times ; but it is very much in requisition when the 
clay of voting comes. It can render inestimable 
service to the cause of good government by wield- 
ing the balance of power it holds with justice and 
wisdom, and from purely patriotic motives. Ours 
must necessarily be, in a certain sense, a govern- 
ment of and by political parties ; but it will be all 
the better for the country if it is a party govern- 
ment tempered by an unselfish, enlightened, and 
patriotic independent opinion. 

I do not know of any period in our recent history 
so propitious for the treatment of public questions 
on their own merits, and for the reformation of ex- 
isting abuses, as the present. There are no issues 
involving the life or death of the nation before us ; 
there is no decision impending of such overshadow- 
ing and absorbing importance as to make us forget 
everything else. Unreasoning passion is out of 
place. We are on the whole in so favorable a con- 
dition that we can calmly consider the business in 
hand. A fair day is the best time for repairing the 
roof of our house. I trust that the American people 
will be mindful of this great opportunity. I am sure 
that the enlightened and patriotic citizens of Massa- 
chusetts will not let that opportunity pass unheeded. 



PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. 35 

And thus I heartily thank you for this demon- 
stration which, while conferring such extraordinary 
honor upon me, illustrates once more the living, 
active sympathy existing between those who advo- 
cate the cause of just and good government in any- 
place, in any part of the country, and this grand old 
Commonwealth, — a leader in progressive ideas, 
whose monuments are upon so many battlefields of 
thought and of patriotic action. 



The Chairman. Gentlemen, we are honored to-night 
by the presence of several gentlemen distinguished among 
the literary men of Massachusetts. I ask you to listen for 
a few moments to one who officially and personally repre- 
sents them with great ability and character. I introduce 
to you the President of Harvard College. 



ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT CHARLES W. ELIOT. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — My occupa- 
tion leads me to study the applications or exhibi- 
tions of disciplined mental and moral power in the 
various pursuits of men. One who had no clear 
conception what the powers are which an advocate, 
a physician, or a minister should have at command 
would be but a blind guide in directing the training 
of young men for those callings. So I have had 
occasion to consider what the needful qualities and 
powers of statesmen are; and in answer to your 



3 6 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

summons, Mr. Chairman, I will say a few words on 
that theme. 

You will not imagine that I have any reference 
to that large class of public men who are described 
as office-brokers. That, gentlemen, is certainly the 
meanest business now anywhere done. The very 
word is an insult to an honest and useful trade 
which, I see, is honorably represented at these 
tables. 

The modern statesman needs, in the first place, 
the power of clear, forcible, and persuasive exposi- 
tion. Especially is this the case in a republic where 
millions of voters have to be instructed in matters 
of public policy, and crass ignorance is often to 
be found even in intelligent representative bodies. 
The statesman seldom deals with new principles or 
ideas ; his task is to show how to treat new cases 
by old rules ; his business is wisely to apply well- 
established principles under more or less novel con- 
ditions. Look at the speeches made by our dis- 
tinguished guest during the twenty years past, and 
you will find that they treat of well-worn themes, 
— such as slavery, executive usurpation of powers, 
discontented populations, international relations, 
public finance, currency, public works, and civil 
service. These subjects have all been treated with 
the utmost thoroughness, both theoretically and 
practically, in one nation or another, at one time or 
another, in the history of the modern world. Indeed, 
some of them have been repeatedly worked out to 



PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. 37 

their ultimate issues in this country ; and repeatedly 
have the discussions and the experience, with all 
their lessons, been forgotten by the people. Take, 
for example, the subject of irredeemable paper 
money, and you will not find a better statement of 
the evils of that currency than was given by the 
Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Appleton, pastor of the First 
Church in Cambridge, in his second sermon preached 
on a special Fast Day in January, 1747, from the 
text, " And he looked for judgment, but behold op- 
pression ; for righteousness, but behold a cry." The 
reverend preacher spoke from his own observation, 
and the bitter experience of his contemporaries. 
The fact is that paper money, clipped coin, prohibi- 
tory tariffs, sumptuary laws, usurpations, repudiation, 
and corruption are not new sins or follies, but very 
old ones. The statesman must be constantly giving 
the most elementary lessons in public policy and 
public righteousness ; but to give those lessons well 
— with lucidity, ample illustration, and logical acu- 
men — is a worthy task for the keenest and best 
trained intellect. I need not say that this power of 
luminous exposition is a gift of exceeding rarity, 
which always commands our admiration ; but when 
the gift is exercised and exhibited in a language 
not the mother tongue, it may well excite our admi- 
ration to the highest decree. 

There is another great power which the statesman 
must constantly exercise, not only in legislative as- 
semblies, but in committees, administrative coun- 



38 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

cils, and even in private meetings, — I mean the 
power of debate. You will not suppose that I have 
in mind the wretched art of making a smart rejoin- 
der or a sarcastic retort, still less the truly diaboli- 
cal art of enraging one's opponents by taunts and 
sneers. I mean the power of fairly meeting the 
heavy shock of a worthy opponent's argument, of 
parrying the keen, quick thrust of an interpolated 
objection, of turning against one's adversary his own 
guns, of summoning from the reserves of a well- 
stored mind prompt reinforcements of fact, figure, 
and illustration, — and all this on a sudden, perhaps 
before a hostile audience, or when the truth which 
is to be defended is ungrateful. The strong debater, 
in this sense, on large subjects is a very rare person- 
age, remarkable not only for the power of his word, 
but for the amplitude of his knowledge. Anybody 
with a fair memory can deliver a prepared speech, 
if only he has adequate notice. Nowadays any 
Congressman of average ability can make what is 
called a sfreat effort. He can hire a hack to write it 
for him ; or he can get the latent person whose axe 
is to be ground to supply the copious stream of 
speech. The hospitality of the " Congressional Rec- 
ord " is wide indeed. But, gentlemen, the genuine 
debate in Senate Chamber, committee room, or Cab- 
inet, for the purpose of arriving at sound conclu- 
sions and shaping wise action, — that is one of the 
most striking exhibitions of disciplined mental power 
which the world affords. We have here to-night a 
genuine debater. 



PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. 



39 



But I would not lay too much stress upon the 
mental powers of the true statesman ; for his moral 
qualities are more important. I cannot speak of 
them all, for what high trait does he not need ? He 
needs courage, the love of justice, and a supreme pa- 
tience. It was Pitt, I think, who said that the most 
needful virtue in administration is patience. The 
real lags so exasperatingly behind the ideal ! Let 
me single out two moral qualities which the Ameri- 
can statesman especially needs, — independence and 
highmindedness. Independence of character! that 
sturdy, inflexible, and self-reliant force of will which 
enables a statesman to follow the dictates of his own 
judgment and conscience, in opposition to party 
passion or the fury of the multitude, if need be to 
his own injury ; and highmindedness ! that elevation 
of soul, founded on self-respect, which manifests 
itself in his avoidance of personal or petty alterca- 
tions, in the whole tone of his public speech, and 
in his steadfast respect for the people. Universal 
suffrage engenders a peculiarly revolting kind of 
sycophant ; namely, the flatterer of the multitude. 
To flatter and cajole a few eminent personages un- 
der despotic forms of government is not so mean 
a task as to flatter and cajole masses of men under 
republican forms. A deified emperor was but a 
transitory delusion ; a deified populace, flattered with 
such appellations as " imperial " and " sovereign," is 
a much more durable and dangerous idol. Many of 
our public men manifest in the surest of all ways an 



4-0 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

utter contempt for the people, — they constantly ap- 
peal to their prejudices, their cupidity, and their 
passions. The independent and highminded states- 
man appeals to the reason of the people ; he tries 
with all his might to enlighten, persuade, and con- 
vince them ; he believes that their history has an 
intelligible voice ; he never flatters them ; he teaches 
— I borrow some noble words spoken years ago 
by our guest — that the reason, the good sense, the 
conscience, and the enlightened will of the people 
are their destiny, and urges them to acknowledge 
no other. 

No nation is long grateful to a public man who 
urges them, or permits them, if he can help it, to do 
a mean thing, — such as to break their promises, to 
clip their coin, or to maltreat their servants. The 
statesmen who are remembered with honor are they 
who respect themselves, respect the people, and on 
every issue urge the people to do what is just and 
magnanimous. Now, that is what our honored guest 
has done through all the twenty years of his public 
life. He has proved himself, during this long pe- 
riod of conspicuous public service, to possess in 
an eminent degree the intellectual powers and the 
moral qualities which are needed in an American 
statesman. 



DR. ELLIS'S ADDRESS. 41 

The Chairman. Gentlemen, the committee have re- 
ceived several letters from distinguished gentlemen, two of 
which I propose to read; the others will appear in the 
morning papers. [He then read the letters from ex-Presi- 
dent Hayes and ex-Secretary Sherman, printed on pp. 
74. 75-] Gentlemen, I am now going to call for testimony 
for the Indians from a gentleman who knows something of 
their feelings. I ask you to listen to the Rev. Dr. George 
E. Ellis. 



ADDRESS BY THE REV. GEORGE E. ELLIS, D.D. 

This occasion of welcome and respect to our 
g Ues t — a distinguished statesman and public ser- 
vant — reminds me of a scene where last I was in 
his company, when he was treated with like honor 
and grateful regard. It was quite unlike this scene, 
and yet there is an intimate relation between them. 
It was nearly a year ago, when, with the honored 
President of the nation, and a marvellous concourse 
of people, he attended what we may call the Com- 
mencement Day at the Hampton Normal Institu- 
tion for Negroes and Indians. It was in Virginia 
Hall. The pupils are called blacks and red men ; 
but they seemed of every color, even some of the 
prismatic ones. When our guest rose to speak to 
them, there was a greeting which interpreted itself. 
It was not boisterous or noisy; but its sounds and 
gestures, the gaze of eyes, the attent of ears, all ex- 
pressed its heartiness, its depth, and fulness of feel- 
ing. The Indians recognized in him their wise and 



4 2 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

kind friend, — their benefactor ; the one leading man 
who had proposed and put on trial at last the one 
hopeful method for future experiment by our nation, 
for justice, mercy, and peace between us and the 
native tribes. Our guest has honorably and nobly 
linked his name and repute with this new policy. 
He has the sympathy and confidence of all the hu- 
mane and right-minded of our whole people in it. 
The nation may be won to it. And there is every 
reasonable prospect that it may prove to be the 
means of redressing the fearful sum of wrongs and 
treacheries chargeable upon the nation in its deal- 
ings with the aborigines. Yet I think that a word 
of explanation — though not of palliation — may be 
spoken for our Government. 

I had shared to the full the popular impression 
which has so often found a sharp and stinging 
utterance, that the course of our Government, 
through its full century, toward the Indians, has 
been treacherous, unscrupulous, malignant, and in- 
human. A weary course of thorough study and 
investigation for a special purpose, pursued through 
the whole mass of State documents, — for nearly a 
hundred volumes of which I have been indebted to 
our guest, — has led me to qualify and relieve that 
bitter judgment, so far, at least, as any set object, or 
planning, or intent of wrong is concerned. I grant 
that, in fact, in effect, and with painful accumula- 
tions of evidence, such has been the humiliating 
and often unscrupulous and cruel character of the 



DR. ELLIS'S ADDRESS. 43 

dealings of our Government with the Indians. But 
it has not been so in intent, in premeditated or de- 
liberate defiance of humane methods. Far other- 
wise. Very easily might a mass of evidence be 
spread before us, with testimony from documents, 
messages of Presidents, beginning with those of 
Washington, acts and resolves of Congress, schemes, 
appropriations, and all sorts of public measures de- 
vised by our Government and the constituency 
behind it, — all showing an honorable intention to 
treat the aborigines, as a whole and in their tribes, 
with mercy, humanity, and a lavish generosity. 
And these righteous aims have been complemented 
by an infinite succession of philanthropic, mission- 
ary, and educational enterprises, undertaken by in- 
dividuals and associations. Sums of money, which 
would have covered any estimate which the Indians 
themselves would have made of the value of what 
have been regarded as their lands, have been paid 
for ends of peace with them, to say nothing of the 
cost of fighting them. 

Yet all these humane and kindly purposes have 
been thwarted, and the actual results are humiliating 
to us ; convicting us of grievous wrong ; seeming 
fully to justify the stinging reproaches against our 
Government. Possibly, those reproaches may be 
somewhat lightened by a candid statement of the 
means and causes through which just intentions 
have in effect yielded to injustice and treachery. 
These good purposes have faltered, and have then 



44 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

been overridden by circumstances unforeseen, but 
resisting, by obstacles, complications, incidental and 
temporary contingencies, defying even, the power 
as well as the deliberate intentions of the Govern- 
ment. There have been three principal and obsti- 
nate agencies of this mischief which have started 
up, unforeseen and unprovided for, and before which 
the Government has yielded. 

i. We must recognize that spring and source of 
so much of our national trouble, — the conflict be- 
tween the Federal and State jurisdictions, by which, 
as in the first signal case of Georgia, paralleled ever 
since down to our own times, the Government 
pledged to Indians territory which afterward came 
under the sway of local Legislatures. 

2. The rapid opening and occupation of vast 
regions for improvement by the whites, so that in 
decades of years the frontier lines have encroached 
on Indian domains, — the lines changing like an 
horizon, while the settlements of the Pacific coast 
have griped the central wilderness, tightening its 
borders and reducing its extent. 

3. The enterprises of exploration, of mail routes, 
of telegraphs, and mining by the people, who are 
stronger than the Government ; before whom the 
Government has quailed, temporized, and then 
broken its solemn pledges. 

Nor in this century of public faithlessness and 
inhumanity, of oppression and cruelty, have our 
people been merely the inflictors of wrong. Suffer- 



DR. ELLIS'S ADDRESS. 45 

ing and vengeance have been returned upon them 
in full measure. Twelve white persons certainly — 
some intelligent estimates assure us twenty — have 
died in battle, ambush, or torture, for every single 
Indian life that has been extinguished in the long- 
contested struggle between the races on this conti- 
nent. And the cost of killing each Indian has been 
set at a million dollars. As to their extermination 
in this process, our most careful authorities tell us 
that there are as many Indians now on our so-called 
domain as there were when the whites first came. 
The relations of the whites with the aborigines on 
this continent having begun in wrong, have been 
resented and resisted by them, after their own modes 
of wile and warfare, to such effect as to persuade 
the whites that they had to deal with incarnate 
fiends. This conviction, which has been stamped 
afresh upon the dreads and perils of those who have 
advanced our frontiers over each successive western 
valley, river, and mountain range, has perpetuated 
the belief that the right of civilization against bar- 
barism involves the right of extermination. Yet 
humanity and righteousness protest against that 
gigantic outrage. Still, there is only one effectual 
alternative to extermination, — and that is the asser- 
tion by the natives of the rights and privileges of 
civilization. From them must come the evidence 
that they are not wild beasts, prowling through 
thickets and plains, but entitled to the rights of hu- 
man beings, — to homes and fields of their own. 



46 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

We must face the simple and rigid condition that 
not until the Indians break up their tribal relations, 
and occupy, in severalty by families, as farms, tracts 
of regions which heretofore they have only roamed 
over and skimmed, — only then will the whites 
allow them to be owners of the soil, and treat them 
as such. And in exacting that condition the whites 
will claim that they follow the law of all civilized 
people, and even the law of Nature. The reason 
why no individual, tribe, people, or nation can 
assert and hold dominion over any portion of the 
high seas or ocean, is because no permanent occu- 
pancy or improvement can be set up there. All are 
free to course them or to fish them ; but they have 
no owners. By the same test, however, in councils 
and treaties with tribes of Indians, our Government 
may have shammed a recognition of their territorial 
rights. It has been but a sham. From the first 
coming here of the whites they have never honestly 
held — yielding all that followed the admission — 
that any tribe of Indians found in occupancy of a 
portion of territory had a bona fide title of owner- 
ship of it. Though they might, after first getting a 
footing in it through conquest or vacancy, amid an 
incessant internecine warfare, have hunted over it 
for two or three generations, still it was not theirs 
as against any rival roamers. They had merely 
skinned vast spaces of it of its natural productions ; 
they set up no tokens of possession, with bounds 
and fencings and improvements. These are the 



DR. ELLIS'S ADDRESS. 47 

white man's credentials for title and possession ; and 
not till the Indian copies them and holds by them 
will he be treated otherwise than as the vermin of 
the soil. 

While we find cause of satisfaction and encour- 
agement in the adoption of an Indian policy for the 
future which will rectify our errors and wrongs, we 
must not imagine that we are thus to relieve a most 
serious and perplexing duty of its difficulties and 
embarrassments. The Indian question will be a 
troublesome one to our Government and people so 
long as there are Indians. And there will be spe- 
cial race characteristics about it, in many respects 
unlike those which invest a wise dealing with the 
blacks and the Chinese. Some of us have charita- 
bly tried to interpret the remark attributed to our 
great General, that "the only good Indian is a dead 
Indian," as simply meaning that the Indian element 
or quality must be suppressed, overruled, or killed 
out of a man, before he will be a safe or promising 
subject to deal with. If this be a fair construction 
of the stern sentence, it will find multitudes to ac- 
cord with it. We need only to remind ourselves 
what dreads and disgusts are stirred up by the 
presence and prowling of a tramp around our 
best-guarded rural homesteads, to conceive what 
apprehensions will threaten the inhabitants of fron- 
tiers on the border lines of civilization and savagery, 
in the neighborhood of Indians, even while they are 
advancing in the early stages of fixed residences 
and farming. 



48 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

Another fact which we must recognize and allow 
is this : Whatever course our Government pursues 
toward the Indians, be it the very wisest and most 
humane, will have about it the essential element of 
arbitrariness, dictation, and compulsion. If we con- 
sult the Indians about it, as with a purpose of hav- 
ing their consent or approval, it will be under the 
implication that they have got to yield to it. We are 
not ready to assume that they are competent judges 
as to what is best for them. Our judgment in the 
case will have sway, whether they accord with it or 
not. And when in wisdom and humanity our plans 
for them are decided, they will be compelled to 
comply. This element of arbitrariness is unavoid- 
able, because it is our judgment in the case, though 
it may or may not be theirs. And something more 
than human in generosity and unselfishness would 
be expected of us, if in planning and deciding as to 
what is the best disposal to be made of the Indians, 
we are not largely influenced by considerations of 
our own security and interest. The greeting which 
our honored guest received from the Indians at 
Hampton is but the first note of the eulogies which 
will extend through the centuries to come, for the 
initiation of his Indian policy. 



DR. CLARKE'S ADDRESS. 49 

The Chairman. I will now call, gentlemen, upon one 
of the most independent of Massachusetts politicians ; a 
gentleman who sometimes goes to conventions, but who 
is never conventional, — the Rev. James Freeman Clarke. 



ADDRESS BY REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, D.D. 

These, Sir, are the methods of European despot- 
isms ! Gentlemen come together to have a pleasant 
dinner in each other's society, and they suddenly find 
themselves called upon by your arbitrary authority 
to make a speech. But, Sir, I am equal to the occa- 
sion. I suspected how it might be. When I knew 
that we were to have for our guest this evening a 
gentleman guilty of the crime of having been born 
in Europe, and whose early life, as is well known, 
was spent in the service of emperors and kings, I 
thought that we might have introduced here some 
of the dark and cruel methods of imperial govern- 
ments. I therefore carefully wrote out a speech and 
put it in my pocket; and, to save time, I will now 
read it. 

I think, Sir, that though Boston has done several 
good things during her brief existence, she has sel- 
dom honored herself in a more graceful way than by 
her reception to-night of our distinguished friend. 
The invitation which has brought him here was 
signed by leading men of every party, sect, and way 
of thinking, — conservatives and radicals, statesmen, 
divines, men of business, men of literature, — rep- 

4 



50 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

resenting every phase and form of the best Massa- 
chusetts life. 

And why have these men asked Carl Schurz 
to meet us here ? Because they consider him to 
stand prominent among the statesmen of this coun- 
try for that which they most esteem and honor, — 
for purity in politics ; for the best republican prin- 
ciples ; for human progress ; for the union of liberty 
and law; for honest, clean administration. The 
men who signed that invitation have not done it 
hastily or ignorantly. They have known you long, 
Sir. They are familiar with your course. They re- 
member your struggles and sufferings in the cause of 
liberty abroad. They saw you an exile, on foreign 
shores, coming among a people of another race and 
language, mastering the resources of that language 
as few to whom it is native have done, and becom- 
ing a power for liberty here as there. You have 
guided the vast body of German voters in our land, 
and united them against slavery. You represent to 
our minds the best elements of both nations. We 
owe it greatly to your efforts that we obtained the 
last four years of a good administration, and we 
are largely indebted to you for whatever it has done 
in the cause of civil service reform and pure adminis- 
tration. The government of President Hayes has 
seemed a folly and a failure to the trading Republi- 
can politician on whose brazen forehead is written 
the motto, " To the victors belong the spoils." But 
we see in it four years of successful progress in the 



DR. CLARKE'S ADDRESS. 51 

rio-ht direction, and believe that history will mark it 
as the turning point from demoralization to purity. 
Sneer at it as they may, denounce it as they will, they 
know that it is honored by the nation, and will re- 
main a permanent obstacle to all attempts to restore 
the system of personal government, — that is, govern- 
ment for the benefit of certain persons, and not for 
the good of the whole people. Our gratitude for the 
past is joined with that other kind of gratitude, which 
has been cynically defined as " the sense of favors to 
come." We look for your support and help in the 
great duties of the hour before us, — the permanent 
reform by law of the civil service, the industrial regen- 
eration of the South, revision of the tariff, and, above 
all, ample protection for the freedom and purity of 
the ballot box, that palladium of American freedom. 
The civil service will become what we need, when no 
one is appointed to office but the man best fitted to 
do its duties, no one kept in office who does not 
perform its duties, and no one removed from office 
so long as he faithfully and ably fulfills its duties. 
And the rights of the people in elections will be vin- 
dicated, when law and public opinion concur to make 
it a crime of the blackest dye to obtain nominations 
by trickery, votes by bribery, or to tamper in any 
way with the returns. Such is the work before us, 
to which we trust our friend will lend his important 
influence. 

This is by no means the first time that the people 
of Boston see his face, and hear his voice, and sym- 



5 2 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

pathize with his work. They heard him in Faneuil 
Hall in 1859, and listened gladly to one who having 
fought against tyranny in his own land, and passed 
through adventures there as strange as those of 
Baron Trenck, was now as ardent a champion here 
for the rights of all. We have known him as the 
friend and supporter of Lincoln, as one who gave up 
the emoluments, ease, and dignity of a foreign em- 
bassy to fight in the war of Union and Freedom. 
We have known him as the intimate friend of 
Charles Sumner, and are grateful that in the last, 
somewhat lonely, hours of that noble life, Charles 
Sumner had in Carl Schurz a friend in whose devo- 
tion and affection he could wholly trust ; and we 
listened with gratitude to the voice which in Music 
Hall recounted the great services and defended the 
spotless fame of our own great Senator. 

Those of us who have known all this have not 
found it necessary to examine very critically any 
charges against the fidelity of such a man. After 
observing such a career, we either know a man or 
we do not know him. If we know him, we also 
know that he is incapable of anything dishonora- 
ble. For those who do not know Carl Schurz it is, 
perhaps, well that his vindication has been so com- 
plete ; and that the best friends of the Indians, like 
Bishop Whipple and General Armstrong, should 
have hastened to testify that they never knew a pub- 
lic officer more ready to hear and inquire into the 
wrongs done to the Indians, and to redress those 



MR. PIERCE'S ADDRESS. 53 

wrongs by every means in his power. But those of 
us who are familiar with his history scarcely needed 
any such evidence. Some things may be taken for 
0-ranted ; and one is that the man who has devoted 
his life to the cause of humanity, justice, and univer- 
sal freedom will not suddenly change into a tyrant 
and oppressor. 

Every man has a right to have his actions judged 
by his character and whole career. 

" Judge the people by their actions " is a rule we often get ; 

" Judge the actions by their people " is a wiser maxim yet ; 
Let the mere outside observer note appearance as he can, 
We, more righteous judgment passing, test each action by its man. 



The Chairman. Assembled as we are to do honor to 
a kindred spirit, our thoughts irresistibly turn to the great 
name and fame of Charles Sumner. I ask you to listen to 
his friend and biographer, Edward L. Pierce. 



ADDRESS BY EDWARD L. PIERCE, ESQ. 

Amone living- statesmen, I know no one to whom 
I would more gladly pay a tribute of respect than 
to the honorable guest whom we now welcome. He 
has had the felicity to cover with his life a great 
period, and to fasten his name to it in both hemi- 
spheres. Fresh and vigorous he comes to us, his 
features still youthful, his locks not as yet silvered, 
and, as we believe, with opportunities and honors 



54 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

before him not less than those in retrospect. While 
yet a student, he became the partisan of popular 
rights in 1848, — a year which witnessed the revival 
of the spirit of liberty both in Europe and the 
United States. He is remembered in Germany for 
his chivalrous rescue from the fortress of Spandau 
of the patriot Johann Gottfried Kinkel, — now a 
Professor of the History of Art at Zurich, whom 
it was my privilege to meet two years ago in that 
city, at the house of my friend Mr. Guyer, where we 
had much discourse on the noble career of our 
guest. After a year's residence in London he came 
to this country, in 1S52 ; and in six years or less from 
that time he was able to address audiences in Eng- 
lish, using our language with a facility, a vigor of 
expression, and a keen sense of idioms which belong 
to but few with whom it is the vernacular. No 
foreigner, unless it be Kossuth, has been his rival in 
this regard. In his speeches, he showed from the 
beginning not only breadth of vision and capacity 
for applying the methods of philosophy to political 
questions, which might have been expected from one 
of his gifts and nationality, but as well a vivid per- 
ception of the details of our history, early and later, 
and a delicate appreciation of the local and national 
spirit which has informed its successive epochs. 
Among our public men, to-day, where will you find 
another so accomplished, so well equipped on all 
sides for public service, — speaking and thinking in 
three languages, and in each easily and well ; a stu- 



MR. PIERCE'S ADDRESS. 55 

dent of all political science from the start, and not 
forced to cram for some new question or current of 
opinion ; matching senators in debate, and instruct- 
ing with marvellous skill popular audiences on ab- 
struse subjects of political economy; and, with all 
this, energetic and practical in. the management of 
public business ? 

There is not time this evening to review in detail 
the services of Mr. Schurz on the platform, in the 
field, the senate, and the cabinet ; but some leading 
points in his career may be recalled. In 1858 he 
was active in the senatorial canvass in Illinois which 
gave Mr. Lincoln a national reputation, and led to 
his nomination two years later for the Presidency ; 
and in the same year he aided effectively in a Repub- 
lican success in Wisconsin. No man in i860 did 
so much as he to carry the German vote, — a vote 
which was essential to Mr. Lincoln's election ; and 
in that most important canvass of our history he was 
the peer, before audiences of English-speaking citi- 
zens, of Seward, Sumner, and Chase. In our civil 
war, months before the issue of the proclamation of 
emancipation, at a time when our Government dis- 
owned an Antislavery policy, he sought a discharge 
from our diplomatic service in Spain, unwilling to 
remain longer a distant spectator of the struggle ; 
and on his return he forecasted the future in his re- 
markable speech in March, 1862, at the Cooper Insti- 
tute, entitled " Reconciliation by Emancipation," — 
maintaining that a mere victory of arms would 



56 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

be but half a victory, and that there could be no 
assured peace without a new society at the South 
founded on equality of rights, filled with new hopes 
and aspirations, and harmonizing at once with the 
spirit of our institutions and the spirit of the age. 
In our recent financial controversy, which is destined 
to be of perpetual historic interest, many men in 
public and private life rendered eminent service ; but 
here, again, in the foremost rank of public benefac- 
tors Mr. Schurz will have a place. Though living 
in a section of the country strangely infected with 
false theories of currency, he never wavered a mo- 
ment, never yielded an iota to popular clamor. The 
critical period of that contest was the election in 
Ohio in the autumn of 1875. If the result had then 
been different, we should probably be struggling to- 
day with an irredeemable currency, shifting in val- 
ues, obstructing business, impairing the public credit, 
and corrupting the morals of the people. In the 
summer of that year some gentlemen — Governor 
Hayes among them — met at Cincinnati to confer as 
to the exigency ; and there it was determined to send 
a telegram to Mr. Schurz, then in Switzerland, urg- 
ing him to come home at once and participate in the 
canvass. He came, obedient to the summons ; and 
what service he rendered, and with what effect, is 
known to all. Later, when here in Massachusetts a 
similar issue was pending, his speech in Tremont 
Temple, distinguished for its force of statement and 
lucidity of illustration, was the one which was spread 



MR. PIERCE'S ADDRESS. 57 

in great numbers by the State Committee in every 
village of the Commonwealth. 

And now he has just laid aside the duties of a 
high public trust, in which he has proved a capacity 
for administration equal to that which he had already 
shown in the discussion of public questions. He 
has presided over that department of the National 
Government which, though attracting less than 
those of finance and foreign affairs the popular in- 
terest and imagination, exacts greater labor, em- 
braces more miscellaneous duties, and requires the 
application of more various powers than any other, 
— covering agriculture, patents, the census, public 
lands, national education, and the Indian tribes. In 
all this he has done well. He has been so clear in 
his office that intemperate criticism has been unable 
to impeach his integrity and honor. He leaves be- 
hind no acts to be investigated. He has deserved 
well of the Republic by his persistence and success 
in purging the Indian service of the scandals and 
abuses which have been traditional with it. He has 
uniformly applied to his department the same sys- 
tem of admissions and promotions which prevails in 
all well-conducted commercial business, and which 
ought to prevail without favoritism in the business 
of government. He has done for the civilization of 
the Indian what no predecessor has done, testing 
his fidelity in responsible trusts and his capacity for 
higher education, promoting as never before his in- 
dividual ownership of the soil, and thus preparing the 



58 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

way for the time, — not far distant let us hope, — 
when like the African, who is no longer slave or freed- 
man, the Indian, dropping his exceptional status, 
shall be registered only as an American citizen. 

On the Indian question there is one pre-eminent 
authority, — Bishop Whipple. With him this is no 
new sensation, no fresh topic of declamation. He 
has known the Indian for a quarter of a century, not 
afar off, but by immediate intercourse in camp and 
wigwam. He has been quick to see the red man's 
wrongs, and fearless in denouncing them. By his 
consecration to the work he reminds us of kindred 
services to aboriginal races rendered, within our 
memory, by Selwyn and Patteson on a distant conti- 
nent. Says this distinguished expert on the Indian 
question : — 

" It is due to Mr. Schurz that I should say, that, in twen- 
ty-one years' intercourse with this department, I have never 
found an officer of the government more ready to examine 
into the wrongs done to the Indians ; whenever proof has 
been submitted, he has tried to redress the wrong. He has 
shown a courage and fidelity in the discharge of duty which 
called out my hearty gratitude. To him we owe the estab- 
lishment of Indian police, the employment of Indian freight- 
ers, the removal of bad white men for immorality, and many 
other reforms." 

To my mind the testimony of this saintly bishop 
is worth more than that of the critics whose new- 
born zeal for the Indian has behind it no toils and 
sacrifices in his behalf. 



MR. PIERCE'S ADDRESS. 59 

The ex-Secretary will remember how, from his 
earliest connection with his department, I have said 
to him with reiteration : " Let no temptation of 
honor or service elsewhere draw you, let no calum- 
nies ever drive you, from your post ; but remain there 
till your chief closes his administration. Attest your 
capacity for affairs, and carry into effect the opin- 
ions and policies you have developed in speech." 
And now I gladly join, when his work is finished, 
in the " Well done, good and faithful servant !" with 
which this city and State salute him at the close of 
his official term. 

Our guest has sometimes, in the pleasantry of so- 
cial intercourse, said that I "invented" him. If, 
indeed, I am entitled to the credit of having in any 
way called public attention to him at an early period 
of his career, I esteem myself fortunate. I may per- 
haps be allowed a moment to explain this reference 
by Mr. Schurz to the manner of his original intro- 
duction to this community. In April, 1859, a few 
of us were engaged in an effort to defeat a constitu- 
tional amendment which discriminated against citi- 
zens of foreign nativity. Meeting Senator Wilson 
on the steps of the State House, I called his atten- 
tion to the movement. He said that he had just 
received a letter from the most eloquent German in 
the country, stating how prejudicial to the Republi- 
can cause in the coming national election of i860 
would be the success of that proposition. He gave 



60 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

the name of the writer, then unknown to me, and I 
wrote it as he spelled it. It was the name of our 
guest. The same day I posted a letter to Mr. 
Schurz, asking him for some expression of opinion 
on the question which might be publicly used, and 
adding incidentally that I wished he could be pres- 
ent at a dinner soon to be given in this city com- 
memorative of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, 
where it was proposed to emphasize that statesman's 
well-known sympathies with all who sought among 
us an asylum from foreign oppression. It happened 
to be convenient for Mr. Schurz to make the journey 
hither; and, accepting the invitation, he arrived just 
as the guests were about to enter the dining hall at 
Parker's. It was a notable occasion. Ex-Governor 
Boutvvell, as chairman, spoke with deliberation on 
the place of Jefferson in our history. Other speakers 
were Henry Wilson, John P. Hale, Erastus Hopkins, 
and John A. Andrew, the last being one of the ac- 
tive managers of the festivity. Letters of sympathy 
were read from William C. Bryant, William H. Se- 
ward, and Abraham Lincoln, — Mr. Lincoln's being 
remarkable for its sententious statement of the issues 
of that period. But among the incidents of the day 
Mr. Schurz' speech was the most noted. He was 
then thirty years of age. Of those present few 
had ever heard of him, and probably only Senator 
Wilson had ever met him before. His brief remarks 
interested and charmed all, and, though the season 
was late, there was a general demand that he should 



MR. PIERCE'S ADDRESS. 6 1 

speak in some public place in Boston ; and Faneuil 
Hall was secured for the purpose. It fell to me to call 
the meeting to order with some preliminary remarks, 
and then to introduce Senator Wilson, who presided. 
Mr. Schurz' speech, which he prepared in the few 
intervening days after he arrived here, was published 
in full in the Boston and New York journals. It 
established his rank as an orator of the first order, 
and from that time he was in great request m the 
Eastern States as a lecturer before lyceums and a 
speaker in political contests. Twenty-two years ago 
he came to us unknown; but he now comes to us 
with a fame for eloquence and beneficent service 
which has become a part of American history. With 
every visit to Boston he has found an ever-widening 
circle of friends, while those he has known the long- 
est are as fast bound to him as ever. 

My last word must be of a tender tone. Mr. Schurz 
became a senator in 1869, when Mr. Sumner was 
serving his last term. It was the period in the ca- 
reer of our Massachusetts Senator in which he suf- 
fered much, — pain of body intense and prolonged, 
the antagonisms of political associates, the with- 
drawal of some he had counted as friends, the hand 
of power laid heavily upon him, the censure of the 
Commonwealth he had served so long (happily re- 
canted before it was too late), — a period closed by 
death. In all this our guest was a loyal friend, sym- 
pathetic in private intercourse, tender at the bedside 



62 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

and in the last offices, chivalrous and valiant in pub- 
lic defence. As we recognize by this public festivity 
the character and services of a statesman, it is a 
grateful thought that we are also doing justice and 
honor to Sumner's faithful friend. 



The Chairman. Gentlemen, the English race from 
which we are sprung is the result of a mixture of races, — 
the Briton, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman. The 
English race transplanted to this country has had a still 
greater admixture, — an admixture which will give it 
strength, and which will make America the greater Eng- 
land. We have a representative to-night, in our honored 
guest, of that great German family which is becoming so 
prominent in the politics of our country. I ask you now 
to give your attention to another gentleman, German by 
birth and American by adoption, — a gentlemen well known 
in this city for his professional skill and manly character. 
I introduce to you Dr. de Gersdorfif. 



ADDRESS BY DR. E. B. de GERSDORFF. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen. — I am thank- 
ful for the privilege of welcoming our distinguished 
guest in behalf of his German countrymen. We 
recognize him as a statesman superior to many, in- 
asmuch as he has always endeavored to keep him- 
self in a position above party politics. This, at 
least, is what the Germans especially honor in the 
character and the public career of Mr. Schurz ; and 



DR. de GERSDORFF'S ADDRESS. 63 

I do not know but the whole nation has lately in- 
clined to that way of thinking, since it has selected 
for the highest offices men, not so much known to 
be thorough-going partisans, as thoroughly pure 
men of honesty and principle. When I make use 
of the word countrymen, I mean to do it in more 
senses than one ; for first, of course, Mr. Schurz is 
by birth the countryman of us Germans, and we are 
proud of him ; but, what is of more importance, he 
is, secondly, our countryman here and now as a nat- 
uralized citizen. In fact, he is the countryman of 
every man in this hall ; for if naturalization does 
not make a countryman of any man in the country 
in which he lives, it means nothing. What the 
rights and the duties of a naturalized citizen are no 
one has better taught us by words and example 
than our honored guest; and it is only natural that 
the man who has laid down the principles of justice 
which enable the newly-arrived European immi- 
grant to have his rights preserved, both in the 
country of his adoption and that of his birth, so 
that in due time he will, according to his intrinsic 
value, find, as it were, his specific gravity in the so- 
cial scale, — that man, I say, will treat with the same 
humanity and justice the aborigines, and will allow 
them, according to their merits and capacity, to con- 
tribute their share to the development of the new 
history of mankind on this side of the Atlantic. 

Let me take this occasion to assure Mr. Schurz 
that here, in the little German community of Bos- 



64 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

ton, we have acknowledged and profited by his 
teachings. I mean to say that in this New-England 
corner, here by the side of the old cradle of English 
liberty ; here, surrounded by an enormous majority 
of English and Irish descendants, — even here the 
Teutonic element has held its own. We have be- 
come, in the true sense of the word, naturalized and 
nationalized. This naturalization is a peculiar pro- 
cess ; it works both ways, — on the new and on the 
old settlers. We have clone here what Germans do 
wherever they go ; whether as humble immigrants, 
or as conquerors with sword in hand, — we have both 
learned and taught, given and taken. We have im- 
parted to our new fellow-citizens some of our ways 
of thinking and living; of our knowledge, habits, 
and arts. And we have gradually acquired some 
of their prominent achievements and qualities ; and 
both parties, I think, have been the gainers. But, 
Mr. President, there exists another bond between 
our guest and some of his countrymen here, which 
I cannot omit to mention. We are not only coun- 
trymen as Germans, — fellow-citizens of this great 
Republic, — but we are also fellow-citizens in the 
republic of German letters represented by the Ger- 
man universities. Cives academici fuimus atque 
ad hue sumus. 

I cannot forego the pleasure of reminding Mr. 
Schurz of that happy era in his life, and greet him 
with a hearty vivas ! crescas ! Thirty odd years 
ago, when some of us frequented, as happy stu- 



DR. de GERSDORFF'S ADDRESS. 65 

dents, the classic halls of Berlin, Leipsic, or Jena, 
the University of Bonn on the Rhine counted Mr. 
Schurz among her academic citizens. There it was 
that his future career began to shape itself ; and 
there he first lifted up his voice for liberty with an 
eloquence presaging future renown, and flashing 
on his fellow-citizens with a brilliancy comparable 
only to that of a young Phillips forty years ago in 
Boston. And I call upon our guest to bear me out, 
when I contend that these seats of learning in Ger- 
many were, and always have been, at the same time 
also the hearths and the nurseries of liberty; for 
these German high schools have what no other 
schools in any other country ever had to that ex- 
tent, — namely, that great treasure of strength, that 
proud distinction of German universities, — academic 
liberty : a liberty superior to political freedom ; a 
higher, a philosophical, and critical liberty of the 
mind and conscience ; a liberty in teaching and 
learning uncontrolled, untamed by despotism, un- 
tramelled by church interference or protection, un- 
contaminated by any schemes for gain. And thus 
only they were able to produce and educate men 
who again and again have saved the liberties of the 
German nation. 

But enough of this ; pardon, gentlemen, my fond 
attachment to German schools. In politics I am a 
contented American citizen. Our honored friend 
and guest will sympathize with me. My hope and 
wish would be, that in his future career his work 

5 



66 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

may lie in a direction which shall lead to the founda- 
tion of independent universities, — of which we have 
in Boston and Harvard the promise, if not the very 
beginning. Now, once more, welcome, our guest, 
our German countryman ! first German senator and 
Presidential councilor! Welcome, the man of civil 
reform, the financial adviser ! Welcome, the German 
student of old ! May he ever remain young ! 



The Chairman. Gentlemen, we want now to wind up 
this demonstration ; and we want a man to do it who will 
do it with dignity, with grace, with humor, and with intel- 
ligence, — and that man is Colonel Theodore Lyman. 



ADDRESS BY COLONEL THEODORE LYMAN. 

Your suggestion, Mr. President, that I should 
wind up this demonstration, reminds me of a coun- 
try organist in Germany, of whom it is said that 
Handel one day went up into his organ loft and 
took a seat beside him. When the minister had 
pronounced the benediction, Handel said, " If you 
will allow me, I will play the organ while the con- 
srreeation ^oes out." This the organist very gladly 
allowed him to do. Needless to say, as soon as 
Handel began to play, the congregation all sat down 
again ; and there they remained glued to their seats. 
After that had gone on for some time, and the min- 
ister in the pulpit began to look rather cross, for his 



COLONEL LYMAN'S ADDRESS. 67 

dinner hour pressed, the organist somewhat rudely 
removed Handel from the seat, and said, "You don't 
know how to do it ; listen to me : I can play them 
out." Now, Mr. President, you have picked me out, 
with a great deal of judgment, to " play them out." 

The sight of our guest to-night makes me feel 
like an old man ; because it suggests one of those 
events of years and years ago which mark the per- 
spective of life, — just as some fine and great trees 
in an avenue exaggerate its length. It was in the 
year 1848 that I found myself, a long-legged Yankee 
boy, in the city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, where the 
then celebrated German Assembly, or Diet as it 
was called, was holding its session. Political ques- 
tions had come to a head ; and the very day I 
arrived, there was a rising. At midnight a consid- 
erable mob attacked the hotel where we were, with 
the laudable purpose of drawing forth an obnoxious 
deputy, to make an example of him. And this they 
might have succeeded in doing, had it not been for 
an enormous Englishman, who at that moment was 
sleeping in an upper chamber. I am not aware that 
this large Englishman had any precise notions on 
abstract politics ; but he strongly objected to being 
waked out of a comfortable sleep by any body of 
men, whether Republicans or Legitimists. He de- 
scended in extreme wrath, six steps at a time ; 
appeared on the ground floor, literally stripped for 
action, and fell upon the mob like a pile-driver, just 
as they were breaking through the porte cocJiere. 



68 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

Some of them he grievously hit with his fist ; and 
some of them, seizing by the nape of the neck and 
what Oliver Wendell Holmes has described as the 
ampler part of the pantaloons, he cast forth. The 
struggle was still progressing, when the town guard 
arrived, and, charging bayonets, drove the crowd out 
of the square. I remember that I pulled a rouleau 
of Napoleons out of my boot, in which I had pru- 
dently placed them, and went to sleep again. 

The farce of the night was, I regret to state, fol- 
lowed by a tragedy. The next day the " Reds " 
rose ; pulled up the pavements, confiscated omni- 
buses, and made barricades. As by magic the city 
was filled with troops. Those scenes of our youth 
are pretty vivid to us all through life ; and I can 
hear now, as I did then, the measured, heavy tramp 
of the Prussian infantry in their coal-scuttle hel- 
mets, and that of the Austrians in their white coats, 
as they marched steadily up the high street to the 
attack ; and the sound of the platoon firing in the 
upper part of the town, and the rapid spattering 
shots from the barricades are still in my ears. 
In those remote days, Mr. President, we had no 
very high opinion of the German Liberals; and 
there was some reason in this, for this very Diet 
whereof I speak, which in the beginning had the 
power of all Germany between its finger and thumb, 
instead of proceeding to any organization of govern- 
ment, began to consider the abstract rights of man- 
kind ; and, if I recollect right, their first essays were 



COLONEL LYMAN'S ADDRESS. 69 

on the system of ballot in the second Egyptian 
dynasty ! By the time they had got down as far as 
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the crowned heads, 
having from their delay taken heart of grace, came 
with bayonets and put an extinguisher on the whole 
thing. And another reason we had for undervalu- 
ing them was not a reason, but the good old-fash- 
ioned British prejudice which we had drunk in with 
our mother's milk, to look upon all foreigners as 
outside barbarians ; for it is well known that, until 
a very recent time, our English cousins regarded 
the Prussians simply as a mob who looked on while 
the British won the battle of Waterloo. Since 
then, it has been discovered that the Prussians can 
not only look on, but, if necessary, take a hand. 

See how the wheel of time brings up strange 
events ! One of the young men who then took the 
Liberal side, and of whom we thought very little, has 
come to this country to give us the model of all 
future officers of the Interior, — a man who at that 
time was ignorant of our language, every word of 
which is pronounced as it ought not to be pro- 
nounced, and every construction of which is entirely 
against all preconceived ideas ; a man who had no 
knowledge of our government, or, what is quite as 
important, of our misgovernment, — he came hither 
and has done all this. There is a lesson to us here, 
seriously and philosophically, Mr. President, when 
we think how we used to talk in Know-Nothing 
times. I suppose most of the gentlemen present are 



7 o 



VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 



too young to recollect that there ever were Know 
Nothings : perhaps, however, taking the Greek trans- 
lation, the Agnostics of to-day are their descend- 
ants. We who remember the Know Nothings see 
what an enormous change has taken place. People 
used to say that Americans must govern New Eng- 
land. The Puritan English have done great things 
for this country, and they will continue to as long 
as it is a country; but the field needs millions of 
laborers more than the Puritans can ever give to 
it, and we must have them from all nations. And 
when you come to talk of a foreigner, what is a 
foreigner? I am aware that our old ethnology used 
to speak of Aryans and Basques and Celts, — which 
some studious ladies pronounced " Kelts," — and of 
other strange people. But now comes Virchow and 
says this is all bosh ; there is no such thing as a 
pure Aryan, or a pure Basque, or a pure anybody; 
we are all mixed up together, and have been since 
the neolithic age. And so, whether we like it or 
not, the Americans of the future will be — as in- 
deed they are to-day — a mixed race of English, 
Irish, Germans, Welsh, and Scandinavians. There- 
fore we owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Carl 
Schurz for having shown that a foreigner, born 
abroad and coming to this country, can, in a high 
office, not only be a useful man, but even a blessing 
to the country. 



III. 



LETTERS. 



INVITATION TO EX-ATTORNEY GENERAL DEVENS. 

Equitable Building, 

Boston, March 8, 1881. 

DEAR Sir, — The committee having charge of the invi- 
tations to the dinner to be given to the Hon. Carl Schurz 
in Boston, on Tuesday, March 22, cordially extend to you 
an invitation to attend the dinner, and to share with Mr. 
Schurz the appreciation which citizens of Massachusetts 
entertain for the satisfactory manner in which the Cabinet 
officers of the last Administration performed their mani- 
fold and laborious duties. 

It is especially the wish of the Committee that the 
Massachusetts representative in the last Cabinet should 
receive the honors due to his faithful and able perform- 
ances ; and you are therefore placed first on the list of in- 
vited guests to the dinner. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Francis Parkman. 
Edward Atkinson. 
Alfred D. Chandler. 
Hon. Charles Devens, Washington. 



72 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 



LETTER FROM EX-ATTORNEY GENERAL DEVENS. 

Washington, March 13, ISSi. 

GENTLEMEN, — I am much obliged by the invitation to 
attend the dinner to be given to the Hon. Carl Schurz on 
March 22. I regret that I cannot answer definitely that I 
will be present on the occasion, as it is barely possible that 
some engagements, personal and professional, already made, 
may interfere ; but I shall expect and hope to be with you 
at the time named. 

Whether present or absent, I shall always render most 
willing testimony to the ability and fidelity with which 
your distinguished guest has performed his arduous duties 
during the last four years. 

For your kind association of my labors in the last Cabi- 
net with his, and your more than courteous mention of 
them, and for the position you assign me among the invited 
guests, I am more than grateful. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Charles Devens. 

Francis Parkman, Edward Atkinson, Alfred D. Chandler. 



LETTERS. 



SECOND LETTER FROM EX-ATTORNEY GENERAL 
DEVENS. 

Washington D. C, March 15, 188 1. 

GENTLEMEN, — In my note of the 13th inst. I suggested 
that it was possible that a professional engagement might 
deprive me of the pleasure of accepting your invitation to 
the dinner to be given to the Hon. Carl Schurz. 

At that time I had a case specially assigned for Wednes- 
day of the present week in the Supreme Court here. The 
illness of Judge Bradley has compelled that court to ad- 
journ for a week, and the case in question was reassigned 
by the court for Monday, the 2ist inst. It is one which 
I consented to argue after considerable urgency, and, al- 
though private in its character, involves public considera- 
tions of great interest in connection with the construction 
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. I can- 
not, therefore, honorably abandon it; although, if I alone 
were to determine the matter, I should feel that my associ- 
ate with whom I have prepared the brief could satisfactorily 
present it to the court without my assistance. 

I must, under these circumstances, decline the invitation 
tendered to me; but, in so doing, I beg to render my most 
cordial tribute to the ability, care, and fidelity with which 
your guest has performed his important duties as Secre- 
tary of the Interior, and the pleasure which I have had in 
four years of intimate personal and official association with 
him. 

With thanks for your courteous invitation, believe me, 
gentlemen, your obedient servant, 

Charles Devens. 

Francis Parkman, Edward Atkinson, Alfred D. Chandler. 



74 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 



LETTER FROM EX-PRESIDENT HAYES. 

Fremont, Ohio, 14 March, 1881. 
GENTLEMEN, — I regret that I cannot accept your kind 
invitation to the dinner to be given to Mr. Schurz in Boston 
on the 22d. It is a personal gratification to know the ap- 
preciation which citizens of Massachusetts entertain for the 
character and services of Mr. Schurz. I would be glad to 
unite with them in doing him honor. 

Sincerely, R. B. HAYES. 

Francis Parkman, Edward Atkinson, Alfred D. Chandler. 



LETTER FROM EX-SECRETARY EVARTS. 

1507 K Street, Washington, March 12, 1881. 

GENTLEMEN, — I have had the honor to receive your 
kind invitation to attend the dinner to be given in Boston 
to Mr. Schurz on the 22d inst. 

I have supposed that it might be in my power, as it cer- 
tainly is my desire, to take part in this testimony to the 
public character and services of Mr. Schurz ; but the pres- 
sure of engagements, in the short interval before I am 
obliged to sail for Europe, will not permit me to do so. 

You may be sure that Mr. Schurz' associates in the late 
administration not only share the general esteem in which 
his fellow-citizens regard him and his conduct of affairs, 
but feel a personal gratification in every demonstration in 
his honor. 

With my thanks for the attention of your invitation, and 
my great regret that circumstances preclude my accepting it, 
I am, gentlemen, very truly yours, 

Wm. M. Evarts. 

Francis Parkman, Edward Atkinson, Alfred D. Chandler, 
Committee. 



LETTERS. 



75 



LETTER FROM EX-SECRETARY SHERMAN. 

Washington, March 10, 1881. 
Messrs. Francis Parkman and others, Boston, Mass. 

Gentlemen, — I should be delighted to accept your 
invitation to a dinner to be given to the Hon. Carl Schurz 
on Tuesday, March 22 ; but my official duties will prob- 
ably require me to be in the Senate at that time. 

My acquaintance with General Schurz was first formed 
when we were both members of the Senate ; but the more 
intimate acquaintance with him by four years' association in 
the Cabinet impressed me more than ever with the admira- 
ble qualities of head and heart which he possesses. His 
wonderful acquirements as a linguist and an orator, and 
his clear judgment and perception as to the truth of all 
political questions, made him an admirable Cabinet officer, 
and secured the discharge of all the duties imposed upon 
the Interior Department with fidelity and integrity. 

The citizens of Boston do well to honor General Schurz, 
and he is deserving of all that you can bestow upon him. 

Very respectfully, 

John Sherman. 



76 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 



LETTER FROM GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, ESQ. 

West New Brighton, Staten Island, N.Y., iS March, 1S81. 
Francis Parkman, Esq., for the Committee. 

Dear Sir, — I am very much honored by the invitation 
to the dinner to be given to Mr. Schurz, and I regret sin- 
cerely that engagements which I cannot disregard nor post- 
pone prevent my acceptance. 

I should most gladly unite in your tribute to the "eminent 
ability, the marked fidelity, and the approved success " of his 
official conduct. Mr. Schurz has many claims to honora- 
ble distinction, but not the least of them is that he brought 
a firm, efficient, and purifying hand to the administration of 
a department in which the most intricate and wide-spread 
abuses of many kinds had been, at least, suspected ; and from 
the evil system of minor appointment and removal in the 
Department itself, to the vast public interests involved in its 
exterior operations, his energy, sagacity, and fidelity have 
been most beneficially felt. Should Mr. Schurz' views, and 
the recommendations of ex-President Hayes in accord- 
ance with them, be adopted by Congress, a great National 
wrong will be corrected ; and a truly just and humane In- 
dian policy will date from his administration of the Interior 
Department. 

That great public services should be attended by great 
and unmerited hostility is an incident too familiar to be sur- 
prising. But when time has healed the wounds of personal 
feeling, and the character and results of his political and 
official action are dispassionately estimated, it will be seen, 
I think, that, since Albert Gallatin, no American citizen not 
born upon our soil has performed more honorable public 
service, or merits public respect more truly, than Carl 

Schurz. 

Very truly yours, 

George William Curtis. 



LETTERS. J? 

LETTER FROM MR. FRANCIS PARKMAN. 

Boston, March 21, 1881. 
Hon. Charles R. Codman. 

My Dear Sir, — I regret that the state of my health 
will prevent my attendance at the dinner to Mr. Schurz ; 
and doubly regret it because his high distinction has been 
earned, not by arts of political management, but by the 
knowledge and practice of good government. 

He has been beset with many difficulties. One of the 
questions with which he has had to deal is complicated to 
the last degree and full of perplexing alternatives, partly 
through inherent causes, and partly through the faults of 
the past. The nation has had much to answer for in its 
relations with the Indians, and it is a matter of hearty con- 
gratulation that some signs of compunction begin at last to 
appear. Perhaps it is natural for us, under the circum- 
stances, to try to find a scapegoat; but it is hardly fair to 
choose our best citizens to bear the burden of our iniquities. 
Justice should be just on both sides. High character and 
eminent services have their rights ; and among them is the 
right of not being pelted with hard names without convinc- 
ing proof that they are deserved. We are much too good- 
natured toward those who deserve ill of the country, and 
we have fallen into a bad way of condoning vices, both 
public and private. It will be worse for us still if we learn 
to ignore the virtues and talents of public men, and suffer 
the noblest record to pass for nothing. To do so is not 
only a wrong to one man, but an injury to society itself. 

Yours very truly, 

Francis Parkman. 



IV. 



RECEPTION 



GERMAN CITIZENS. 



On Wednesday evening, March 23, Mr. Schurz was en- 
tertained at the Turn Halle by the German citizens of 
Boston, who tendered their distinguished countryman an 
enthusiastic reception. After orchestral music by the 
Germania band, and a part song by the singing section of 
the Turnverein, the chairman of the reception committee, 
Captain MAGNITZKY, announced that Professor Krauss 
would make the introductory address. The proceedings 
were in German. 

Professor KRAUSS said, substantially — 

That he felt highly honored by having been re- 
quested by the committee to greet, in the name of 
the Germans of Boston, that man to whom the Ger- 
mans of the whole Union looked up with the highest 
esteem, with pride, and admiration. Then, address- 
ing Mr. Schurz, he said that he did not greet him as 
general or minister, senator or secretary, for these 
titles he shared with many others ; but in the whole 



80 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

United States there was only one Carl Schurz, — 
and to him, to the man for whom these titles were 
only garbs, the greeting of the Germans of Boston 
was tendered. The fact that he had risen to the 
highest honors open to a foreigner in this country 
had filled the German population of America with 
pride ; but the warm feeling and admiration which 
they entertained for him were not called forth by the 
mere fact that he was senator and secretary, but by 
the manner in which he acquitted himself of his 
duties as such. Even as citizens of Massachusetts 
they owed him thanks for the assistance he had ren- 
dered them a few years ago by his speech in Tre- 
mont Temple, when the struggle was to be fought 
against the party that aimed at the depreciation of 
our national currency and credit. His activity in the 
Senate had been an uninterrupted contest against 
wrong and corruption, — even against members of 
his own party, he for some time standing almost 
alone with the great Senator of Massachusetts, 
Charles Sumner. The speaker praised President 
Hayes for his sagacity and courage in calling Mr. 
Schurz into his cabinet in the face of party hostility. 
Though Mr. Schurz was now returning to private 
life, his countrymen hoped he would continue to 
fight for the noble principles he had advocated here- 
tofore, as in the present state of politics a man of 
his ability, experience, and firmness could not be 
spared. After assuring Mr. Schurz of the warmest 
love and sincere admiration of the Germans of Bos- 



RECEPTIONS. 8 1 

ton, who were conscious that no other man had 
brought the Germans of America such honor as 
he, the speaker, in conclusion, turned to the audi- 
ence and invited them to join him in giving Mr. 
Schurz a heartfelt welcome as their German coun- 
tryman, their American fellow-citizen, and their 
highly honored guest. 

An inspiriting scene followed, — the hall resounding 
with the pleasant sound of joyful shouts, which did not 
subside until Mr. Schurz had stood speechless for some 
time, silently bowing his acknowledgments. He then 
spoke as follows : — 

ADDRESS BY THE HON. CARL SCHURZ. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — I thank you more 
than I can express for this welcome. I may truth- 
fully say that I have never had a more hearty 
reception, nor kinder words than those of your 
honored spokesman. I thank you from the bottom 
of my heart. Public life, it is thought, has many 
roses ; but there are no roses without thorns. Pub- 
lic life has, perhaps, more of the latter than the 
ordinary proportion. There are but few occasions 
in it from which he who devotes himself to it de- 
rives real satisfaction. I have often said to friends 
who congratulate me upon the official position I 
held, that there are two great moments of pleasure in 
connection with such a place. One is when the new 
minister ascends the steps of the department building, 
looking forward to great opportunities to accomplish 

6 



82 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

something for the public good, but still unaware of 
the greatness of the difficulties to be met and the 
responsibilities to be borne. The other is, when 
after the close of his official career he descends the 
same steps, looking back upon something accom- 
plished. I have known both these moments; and 
speak from experience, when I say that the last is 
the best. And if there is anything truly satisfactory 
and delightful at the close of such a period of ser- 
vice, it is when, stepping back into private life, he 
hears such voices of public approval as I have heard 
to-night. For this I thank you sincerely. 

When the Germans landed on the American 
shores, we came as a foreign element. A foreign 
element we should not remain. It is not for us to 
live a one-sided life in the American Republic. 
What we are and should be here is American citi- 
zens, — American citizens in the best sense of the 
term, with our whole hearts and our best efforts. 
We are not to form a separate class, and consider 
our own interests as different and distinct from 
those of the great people of whom we form a part. 
It is our duty to identify ourselves with the com- 
mon national life, and to do all we can to promote 
the greatness and prosperity of the country that has 
adopted us. It is our duty to bring the best of 
German character into unity with the best of Amer- 
ican life. It is in this way that we can render to 
our Fatherland the most efficient service. I have 
never forgotten in my public career, that in a cer- 



RECEPTIONS. 83 

tain way the honor of the German name was laid in 
my hands ; and it has been my constant effort not 
to bring discredit upon it. 

I have been told by a member of your committee, 
that my coming to Boston and meeting you in this 
reception has had one remarkable effect, — to bring 
about German unity in Boston. I am glad of it ; 
and you have honored me by thus coming together 
in so hearty a way. The speaker who has just ad- 
dressed me, in your name, alluded with kind words 
to several things which I have done or endeavored 
to accomplish in public life. I may confess, as other 
public men have to confess, that what I have done 
has not always come up to my own intentions and 
hopes ; but I have endeavored to represent the best 
tendencies of the German mind and heart. The 
German citizens of America may feel proud of the 
fact, that in some of the greatest emergencies of 
our history they stood firmly united as the best of 
Americans. At the time when the Republic was 
in danger, and the drum-call summoned to battle, 
the German element, as one man, was true to the 
Republic. And later, when the cause of honest 
money and of the public faith was at stake, the 
Germans stood solidly under the banner of sound 
doctrines, of the national honor, and honest gov- 
ernment. So I have a right to say that when I 
spoke and worked in this cause, I uttered only 
what was in the heart of all good German-American 
citizens. 



84 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTON. 

Our government must, in a certain sense, be a 
government of political parties ; but I have always 
held to the doctrine, that it is the duty of a good 
citizen to be first a patriot before he is a Republican 
or a Democrat; that parties are organized only to 
serve certain great public ends ; that when they 
serve these ends honestly and well, they have a 
right to the support of the citizen ; but when they 
cease to give such service, they are no longer enti- 
tled to call upon the people to follow their lead. 
In other words, there are certain things which 
should be beyond the control of party, — the cause 
of right, of justice, the welfare of the country. 
There is one thing which no good patriot should 
ever yield to party discipline, — his own con- 
science. 

So I may say that in my own political life I have 
never called on my German fellow-citizens to follow 
me, simply because I went this way or that. I have 
never said to them, " Follow this party, simply be- 
cause it is the party which I follow." But the duty 
I have sought to impress upon them was this : Let 
every citizen examine, in his own conscience, what 
is best for the common good. After careful exam- 
ination, if he finds clearly that the reasons I give 
for my own faith are good, I shall be glad ; let him 
act accordingly. But in every case let him be man 
enough to follow the dictates of his conscience. I 
repeat, it is through political parties, in a certain 
sense, that this government must be carried on ; but 



RECEPTIONS. 



85 



when political party organizations know that there is 
a large force of citizens who will follow conscientious 
convictions, and not blindly obey the command of 
party drill-masters, these parties will learn to respect 
and follow conscience themselves. 

And now, fellow-countrymen, after these fewwords, 
allow me once more to give you my heartfelt thanks 
for this cordial welcome ; and to say to you that few 
hours in my public life have been as happy and 
enjoyable as this in which I have been so heartily 
received by the Germans of Boston. 

The close of Mr. Schurz' address was greeted with ap- 
plause as hearty as that at the beginning. Another vocal 
selection closed the public exercises. 

A German Nachtessen, or supper, after the style of the 
Fatherland, was then served in the banquet hall below, 
where plates were laid for about two hundred guests. Mr. 
Henry H. Rueter presided, having Mr. Schurz at his right, 
and near him were Professor Krauss, Hon. Leopold Morse, 
S. B. Schlesinger, and other well-known German citizens. 

Mr. Rueter's introductory remarks alluded to the Ger- 
man reception to Kossuth in the Meionaon over twenty- 
five years ago, and his address to them in their own lan- 
guage, when he spoke of the importance of the influence 
they would have on the institutions of their adopted coun- 
try. He compared them to the salt of the earth. Mr. 
Rueter said that Kossuth's idea of the importance of the 
German influence in America had been realized in Carl 
Schurz ; for whom he called a dreimal hoch. It was given 
with a vim. 

Mr. Schurz responded and said, substantially, that 
whether he had deserved all that had been said about 
him in such pleasant words was doubtful; that he had 



86 VISIT OF MR. SCHURZ TO BOSTOxN. 

striven to deserve it, however, was true. The praise was 
a continuous spurring on to him to do honor to the Ger- 
man and American names. We dwell, said he, in a grand 
country, and among a great and a noble folk. No one 
present could be prouder than he of his German blood ; 
but no man could also feel prouder than he did of his Amer- 
ican citizenship. No people on earth had made greater 
voluntary sacrifices for human liberty and for national exist- 
ence than the American. Not only had they in the late 
war sent many hundreds of thousands of their sons to the 
battle-fields, but, aside from taxes, they had voluntarily 
contributed untold millions to ease the sufferings of our 
wounded. In all history there was to be found no people 
which would have made such offerings. Much had been 
said about American politics and American corruption. 
There was much truth in what was thus said ; but it was 
also true that the American people were a just people, and 
that when their eyes were opened to such corruption, they 
always overthrew those responsible for it. And so it 
would ever be, as long as the people understood the value 
of their freedom. Looking at Europe, it was not too much 
to say that America stood as the only free country on 
earth. In closing, he called upon all to empty their 
glasses with a hoch for the American Republic, — the 
greatest republic that ever was, the greatest that is, and, 
he believed, the greatest that ever would be. Mr. Schurz' 
remarks were followed with hearty cheers. 

Hon. Leopold Morse was called upon. He began his 
remarks in German, but begged the privilege of being 
allowed to continue in English, long use of the adopted 
tongue having made him more able to express himself in 
it. There was no man whom he felt more proud to honor 
than their guest. Mr. Schurz had gained his high place in 
the nation's councils not by wealth, but by his energy and 
the force of his brains. He spoke of the high services of 
Mr. Schurz in the Cabinet, and approved heartily his atti- 



RECEPTIONS. 87 

tude toward office-seekers. Mr. Morse declared strongly 
in favor of legalized civil-service reform ; and said that the 
only way to do the business of a country, as of a private 
concern, was to do it on business principles. He spoke of 
the grand tribute of such a reception as that of the previ- 
ous evening; and said that to deserve such, he himself 
would be willing to live and die a poor man. 

Pastor Schwarz said that he felt like Saul among the 
prophets ; he was here among the political prophets. 
Their guest had head, heart, and conscience in the right 
place ; and such a man was at home in any party. 

Dr. de Gersdorff made a highly humorous speech ; and 
gave reminiscences of the old German days in Boston. 
Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft read an amusing poem in Knittel- 
verse. Mr. Charles L. Rothenberg, of the " New England 
Staten Zeitung," made a spirited response for the German 
press of Boston. Mr. S. B. Schlesinger, German consul, 
spoke briefly, and sang "Die Zwei Grenadier" with such 
effect that another song was demanded. Mr. Louis C. Elson 
spoke for the young German Americans, and, like Mr. 
Morse, began in German and continued in English ; and 
other remarks were made by Professor Krauss, Mr. Carl 
Eberhardt, Mr. Louis Prang, Max Fischacher, Esq., and 
Godfrey Morse, Esq. 



V. 

RECEPTIONS 



ST. BOTOLPH CLUB, ORPHEUS CLUB, 
AND OTHERS. 

FROM the time of the arrival of Mr. SCHURZ in Boston 
on Monday, March 21, till his departure on Friday, the 
25th, he received constant attention at the hands of prom- 
inent citizens. On Wednesday following the dinner at 
the Hotel Vendome, Mr. Schurz received a number of 
visitors ; and among them the executive committee of the 
Civil Service Reform Association. Mr. Schurz and his 
daughter, Miss Schurz, were then given a reception at the 
house of the Hon. Martin Brimmer on Beacon Street. 
During his visit, — which was too short to enable Mr. Schurz 
to accept more than a few of the proposed attentions, — he 
enjoyed the hospitalities of Professor LONGFELLOW, the 
poet, at his residence in Cambridge, and was given a dinner 
at the Union Club, by Mr. Edward Atkinson. He 
also attended receptions in his honor by the St. BOTOLPH 
Club, and by the Orpheus Club ; was the recipient of 
other attentions and receptions of a private nature, and was 
called upon by many leading citizens. 



KD- 12 4 



ft) 




- I 



BD- i 



* -a 



■ffir 



"* 



^ 



NT'S 







^> J> c o « o , <& 



.0* 



% ** \£ 



l / » *£" A v*- 



** % *-SB ; /\ l ™ : ** v \ • 

o « o «<> ts , »£>• .V >j. 









r ^„ 



^ A 

:$<?, 



» < n • 



w* 



DOBBS BROS. | ^ 

LIBRARY BINOINO At- 



< o * 






* ^ & *^WA e ^ A ^ *V 

:- j/ -:^ 



.^^ 



-j\ 







H 






tWui 








LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
013 704 862 % 






IfaflB 



















